A friend of mine sent me a link to an Australian ABC Radio talk: Waleed Aly: out of the box with Richard Fidler interviewing, on 28th September 2016. (MP3).
I've known of Aly for some time, known he was the Aussie go-to guy for matters Islamic when a "moderate Muslim" voice was needed. But I'd also had a slight suspicion that he was a bit of a Tariq Ramadan-type: silky smooth, comforting, but at heart an Islamist. To be sure he didn't come across as oleaginous as the oily Ramadan. But still, at each new Islamist atrocity, Aly was, like, "nothing to see here", and in some cases critical of the critics. Critical of those who criticised the terrorist-enabling Islamic ideology, which strikes me as Islamapologist.
Still, I listened to the above talk and found Aly charming, well-spoken, erudite, well read and amusing.
Yet, listen closer: and again there's no discussion at all of matters Islamic, except a quick sliding by, by both Richard and Waleed. I would have liked it if he'd had the guts to acknowledge that Islam does indeed have problematic doctrines. And say something about that.
I later came across an article by Paul Monk, on the occasion of Waleed Aly's having been honoured with the Voltaire award. (Quite a year for Aly, then!).
Monk makes the same point I do, but rather more elegantly.
"Waleed Aly must step up on Muslim free speech at Voltaire Award", The Weekend Australian, July 13, 2016.
I know many people object to we non-Muslims making such demands. "Muslims must speak up" "Muslims must criticise extremists", Muslims "must" this and "must" that, and so on. Isn't that asking too much, for Muslims always having to comment or criticise each new atrocity committed by their co-religionists? But is it really? There are many Muslim and ex-Muslims out there, bravely making these points. And they need more support. More support to press for a reading of Islam more congenial to enlightenment values (as hard as that project may be).
Someone with the visibility, charm and credibility of Waleed Aly would be a powerful force for good; a powerful force for the moderation of Islam more compatible with the secular values of free countries like his own home Australia.
So, Waleed Aly may be, as the ABC has it, "out of the box", but on matters of open and honest free speech about Islam, pressing for its reform, Aly is clearly still in the closet.
(Rather than quote from Paul Monk's article linked above, it's so good I'm going to copy it all below the fold, with thanks to Mr Monk, who I'm sure won't mind):
On July 23 [2016], Waleed Aly will be presented with the Voltaire Award for free speech from Liberty Victoria. It would be rather charming were he to give a speech on that occasion reflecting on Voltaire’s play Mahomet, which depicted Islam as based on false miracles, personal ambition and ruthless fanaticism.
I've known of Aly for some time, known he was the Aussie go-to guy for matters Islamic when a "moderate Muslim" voice was needed. But I'd also had a slight suspicion that he was a bit of a Tariq Ramadan-type: silky smooth, comforting, but at heart an Islamist. To be sure he didn't come across as oleaginous as the oily Ramadan. But still, at each new Islamist atrocity, Aly was, like, "nothing to see here", and in some cases critical of the critics. Critical of those who criticised the terrorist-enabling Islamic ideology, which strikes me as Islamapologist.
Still, I listened to the above talk and found Aly charming, well-spoken, erudite, well read and amusing.
Yet, listen closer: and again there's no discussion at all of matters Islamic, except a quick sliding by, by both Richard and Waleed. I would have liked it if he'd had the guts to acknowledge that Islam does indeed have problematic doctrines. And say something about that.
I later came across an article by Paul Monk, on the occasion of Waleed Aly's having been honoured with the Voltaire award. (Quite a year for Aly, then!).
Monk makes the same point I do, but rather more elegantly.
"Waleed Aly must step up on Muslim free speech at Voltaire Award", The Weekend Australian, July 13, 2016.
I know many people object to we non-Muslims making such demands. "Muslims must speak up" "Muslims must criticise extremists", Muslims "must" this and "must" that, and so on. Isn't that asking too much, for Muslims always having to comment or criticise each new atrocity committed by their co-religionists? But is it really? There are many Muslim and ex-Muslims out there, bravely making these points. And they need more support. More support to press for a reading of Islam more congenial to enlightenment values (as hard as that project may be).
Someone with the visibility, charm and credibility of Waleed Aly would be a powerful force for good; a powerful force for the moderation of Islam more compatible with the secular values of free countries like his own home Australia.
So, Waleed Aly may be, as the ABC has it, "out of the box", but on matters of open and honest free speech about Islam, pressing for its reform, Aly is clearly still in the closet.
(Rather than quote from Paul Monk's article linked above, it's so good I'm going to copy it all below the fold, with thanks to Mr Monk, who I'm sure won't mind):
On July 23 [2016], Waleed Aly will be presented with the Voltaire Award for free speech from Liberty Victoria. It would be rather charming were he to give a speech on that occasion reflecting on Voltaire’s play Mahomet, which depicted Islam as based on false miracles, personal ambition and ruthless fanaticism.
For some time Aly has been the go-to person for commentary on Islam and avoiding what is widely dubbed “Islamophobia”. It is safe to say he does not share Voltaire’s assessment of Islam.
Yet Voltaire remains a figure for our time, and free speech on the subject of Islam has become extraordinarily problematic. Imagine Mahomet being produced in Paris today! The truth is, if we truly want to buttress a tolerant, multicultural society, we have to confront more honestly the underlying realities that generate “Islamophobia”, however awkward this may be, especially for those such as Aly who are stranded between Islamic culture and secular society. The occasion of the Voltaire Award for free speech is an opportunity for Aly to make this clear.
In April, Aly was interviewed at length by Robert Manne under the rubric “Islam: What are We Afraid of? Waleed Aly and Robert Manne in conversation.” Their conversation was lucid, temperate and fascinating. In some ways, it was a model of intellectual discourse in civil society. The problem is, they did not answer their own question, to say nothing of answering it as Voltaire would have done.
Aly observed correctly that Islamist terrorism had got only worse since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and especially since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
He distinguished thoughtfully between European, American and Australian reactions to Muslim immigration and made intelligent points about Islamic State, Iraq, Syria and the debacle of the briefly promising Arab Spring. He described the short rule in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood as “a disaster”. However, neither he nor Manne raised serious questions about Islam itself; simply gliding over it as “one of the world’s great religions”; the fear of which is, implicitly, irrational, phobic, ignorant and, in Aly’s words, hardly worth engaging with.
They described Islamic State as a rogue operation whose atrocities had nothing to do with Islam but were aberrant even by the standards of al-Qa’ida.
Aly compared beheadings by Islamic State to the Jacobin Terror in 1793 France but didn’t mention beheadings in the history of Islam. Neither mentioned movements towards Islamisation — from North Africa via Turkey to Indonesia — or the disturbing phenomenon of Muslim “militants” murdering journalists and others for mocking Islam.
Consequently, they failed to explain why there would be any reason to feel uneasy about or even hostile to the growing presence of Islam in the West. One might have expected at least passing reference to the many centuries of confrontation between Europe and an expansionist Islam up to the late 17th century. But the only confrontation discussed was the Western invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11.
Clearly, this is an immensely sensitive subject and it is easy to lapse into polemic about it, inflaming rather than tempering debate. If, however, we are to answer the question “Islam: What are we afraid of?” we cannot avoid raising certain characteristics of Islam that do in fact give cause for concern to many people in the West, and many of those trapped in Muslim-dominated states. We know far more than Voltaire did, and what we know is not reassuring.
Karen Armstrong has portrayed Mohammed as “a prophet for our time”. But the classic Muslim sources (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Kathir, Waqidi, al-Tabari, going back to the 8th and 9th centuries) make clear that he was a very dubious figure even in his own time. He founded a religion at the point of a sword, plundered infidels, arranged for the murder of his critics (even poets), massacred or expelled communities of Jews in Arabia, condemned apostates to death, was an unscrupulous polygamist and taught that women were inferior to men.
The Muslim sources themselves are completely explicit on all these points. It is simply dishonest to pretend that none of this is true or to pass it off on the basis that Christianity and even Judaism also have their dark or dubious characteristics. The modern world (Voltaire being a leader) fought its way free of Judeo-Christian dogmatism and error through trenchant criticism of religious claims and practices. There are no good grounds for sparing Islam similar critical treatment; all the more so because we are seeking to integrate into Western societies millions of human beings who happen to be Muslims.
Outside the West, the problem is much worse. In wide swathes of the Muslim world, other religions are persecuted and apostates are hunted to death with judicial sanction. Blasphemy is violently attacked and Muslim “heretics” hounded. Homosexuals are condemned to death. Women and girls are denied freedom and education. The Jews are viciously denounced on racist and religious grounds, quite apart from the political issue of Zionism.
What are we afraid of, then? A world in which, from Bangladesh to West Africa, a savage version of Islam is being championed by armed groups; in which the Indonesian Ulama Council has issued fatwas denouncing secularism, pluralism and liberalism as “sipilis” (syphilis); in which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last year publicly lionised historic Muslim conquests and called for the reconquest of Europe by Muslim immigration.
All these things cause unease and fear. Should they not? We need to address them honestly and intelligently, not dismiss fear of Islam as phobic or bigoted. It would have been good had Manne asked Aly questions about these difficult matters and had Aly addressed them. In accepting his Voltaire Award, Aly needs to step up and champion freedom of speech in the Muslim world and freedom to criticise Islam itself, including the Prophet — as Voltaire himself did.
Paul Monk is the author of The West in a Nutshell (2009), Opinions and Reflections: A Free Mind at Work 1990-2015 (2015) and Credo and Twelve Poems: A Cosmological Manifesto (2016).
