One of the few aspects of the old left that died with communism worth mourning is internationalism. Once upon a time, leftist intellectuals proudly argued for the progress and rights of all people, regardless of nation, creed or location. Now, the cultural relativist left is too post-modern to call backwardness in other societies by its rightful name. 

The barbaric shooting of a girl for wanting to attend school, and for her classmates to be able to join her, is the result of the retrograde culture that forms the core of the “Islamic Republic” of Pakistan. Pakistani officials are condemning the attempted killing, which they did nothing to prevent. How about instead declaring the right, to be enforced by the military, of every Pakistani girl to learn how to read and write? Less than half can.

After the self-loathing prattle of the past few weeks about how the West causes Islamic violence with its films and imperialism, I’d like to hear the Muslim world worry about how the Taliban’s oppression of women might be affecting the Islam’s image on the “Western street”. Maybe Muhammad Morsi and the Egyptian faithful could give us a demonstration of where they stand?

Progress is a real concept. I’ve heard enough arguments about why Muslim women might prefer to be uneducated, why they might enjoy wearing cloth bags in searing heat, or why chopping off a clitoris is a cultural practice that deserves respect. Support the brave efforts of women to resist clerically-backed misogyny. Don’t use multiculturalism to negate our common humanity.

I wish Malala Yousafzai a speedy recovery. I hope her suffering is not in vain.

Many criticisms of the article I wrote on the film protests, which called for a response stressing freedom of speech, suffer from what I call the “secular liberal fallacy”. 

My fellow secular liberals regularly make two related mistakes. 

First, we often assume nobody really takes actions based on faith. Even though the people themselves said they protested the film because it was a blasphemy against their prophet, every liberal rushed to say that something else was behind the protests. Why? 

Because deep down, secular liberals are mostly unable to comprehend how anyone can really believe in faith. Nevertheless, millions of Muslims truly believe that God (Allah) controls their fates. They believe God is best understood through revelations made to his final representative, the Prophet Muhammad, a perfect man who is beyond criticism. These revelations are consolidated in a perfect book, the Quran (along with less reliable accounts, known as the hadith), which gives clear instructions to harshly punish those who oppose Islam and its prophet. Moreover, Muhammad has honor, and because Muhammad is dead and cannot protect his own honor from insult, others must do it for him. If you believe in these precepts, violent actions against those who bait a vengeful God and disgrace his prophet are both rational and justifiable.

After denying that faith could be chiefly responsible for acts of violence, we assert instead that these crimes are an outcome of foreign policy, social inequality, poor access to education, or another issue that grieves liberals. In other words, we unintentionally ventriloquize our own critiques of Western policy and social injustice.

Now let me anticipate the objections. 

First, many will say that violent groups like Ansar al-Shariah and other al-Qaeda types do not speak for Muslims. I sympathize with this—I can shamelessly say that some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met are Muslims, and they wouldn’t hurt a fly. But who can adjudicate who “really” speaks for Islam and who doesn’t? 

The unfortunate fact is that fundamentalists offer a very plausible interpretation of the texts. This is not an issue wholly unique to Islam, but for reasons outside the scope of this article, the problem is more pronounced in Islam at this point in time. And those who contend that these fundamentalists are a minority in the Middle East need to explain why the law books of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, just to name the most salient examples, punish blasphemy with lashes and executions. Or how Ayatollah Khomeini, at the time the spiritual leader of many of the world’s shia Muslims, was able to sentence Salman Rushdie, an Indian Muslim living in London, and his publishers, to death for the crime of writing and disseminating a (supposedly) blasphemous novel? 

Second, many will say that Ansar al-Sharia, Khomeini, etc are acting based on politics, not faith. I can’t prove that this is false, but neither could I prove that an obviously theological problem, the Sunni-Shia dispute, is not also political. The issue here is that religion and politics are impossible to distinguish unless forced apart. Faith is inherently political, since any large group willing to believe things without question can be readily organized and exploited by power-hungry cynics. This is why secularism—the enforced division of politics from faith, is essential. 

I hope this post addresses some of the arguments made against my previous post. In my next post, I will try offer further arguments as to why a continuous and robust defense of free speech is the correct response to the protests, rather than an even-handed condemnation of both the protesters and the film.

Update:

You'll notice that ironically I demonstrate the fallacy above myself (at least the part of dismissing faith) in my previous post. This is an incredibly complex issue, and my posts are part of attempts to figure it out myself. While I believe scripture has consequences, it is trumped by culture (and is itself the product of culture). Moreover, focusing on culture is productive because culture is far easier to change than scripture.

Cultures should be criticized. That's how they progress.

It was by criticizing Christianity that the West exited the dark ages. It was by criticizing monarchy and subjection that we got democracy and citizenship. It was by criticizing slavery and segregation that America got closer to fulfilling its founding ideals.

Now a lowbrow film mocking the Prophet Muhammad is not what I am trumpeting. I personally thought it was boring and stupid. I don’t know who was behind the film, and I probably wouldn’t agree with their politics. But I am interested in the predictable murder that follows films, burnings, cartoons, novels, or anything else that “offends” Muslims. I am interested in the culture that produces these actions, the calls for censorship and the conversation that must follow.

What is freedom of speech? It is nothing if not the right to express unpopular or offensive beliefs. Nobody will stop you from saying koala bears are cute. True freedom of speech means protecting the minority, even if what they say is distasteful—it does not include an escape clause for people who are “offended”.

I am, by the way, offended by the bottomless pit of anti-Jewish propaganda streaming online and broadcasted onto the television screens of many of these protesters. I am offended by people who tell me it was the US government that bombed the Twin Towers on 9/11. I am offended by educational programs teaching that women "take pleasure" in being followers. But it doesn’t really hurt me that much. Not enough for me to kill any diplomats or attack foreign restaurants. It's nothing like the real pain felt by the orphaned children, widowed wives and grieving relatives of Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, diplomats who gave their lives to improving relations between America and the Muslim world.

And I don’t think Islam is really what’s behind the angry, semi-literate mobs attacking Western embassies across North Africa and the Middle East at the moment. Instead, it’s the culture of honor that cohabits with Islam. There are many beautiful things about this culture that Westerners can learn from— including its hospitality, its loyalty, its generosity and the notion that a promise is real thing.

But honor also justifies the subjugation of women. It justifies murder as a way to remove shame and gain revenge against insult. And it is central to a culture that desperately needs reform, because it impedes democracy and freedom, both in matters of society and of the state. There can be no free government if politicians can’t criticize, satirize, and yes, offend each other, and if the media and citizenry cannot do the same.

There is no exception to be made for blasphemy, either. Until God deigns to take matters into his own hands, it will be regular mortals who decide his will for you and use it as a cover to gain power in the here and now.

The risk of accepting real freedom of speech is that some people will offend you. So grow a thicker skin. Learn to fight back with words. It beats the alternative of living in a world where you can be convicted for creating comedy, where insulting the president is crime and where innocent diplomats in Libya are murdered because a man in California made a tasteless film.

Der Spiegl dives into Syria's tortuous revolution-cum-civil war:

“The lurching family business is still keeping itself afloat, partly because no alternatives are in sight yet. The prominent civil rights activists who penned the "Damascus Declaration" in 2005 have a program, but no followers. The protest movement in the streets has followers, but no program that extends beyond deposing the regime.”

Definitely worth a full read.

Ibrahim Saif on the failure of government-backed social programs in the Middle East:

“(S)ocial spending is distinguished by low levels of competency, especially in healthcare and education -- the two sectors that capture the greatest share of social expenditure. These sectors are usually not subject to oversight and lack indicators to measure their operational efficiency. Most of the expenditures go to wages and salaries, rather than to areas such as research and development, which could help improve competency and reduce waste.

These sectors also are resistant to change. They are based on obsolete regulations and bureaucratic measures that are difficult to change. Because of the low average employee salary, they often do not attract the most competent candidates and offer employees too few incentives to increase their work efficiency and motivation.”

And a list of practical and actionable suggestions for U.S. foreign assistance reform in Afghanistan from Desaix Myers:

"•Lower the footprint: Building a team of individuals with field experience and enough time in-country to establish trust is more important than increasing numbers in-country. It’s better to focus on fewer people and fewer activities.

• Streamline coordination and oversight: We need to cut coordinating meetings and duplicative requests for information. More responsibility needs to be delegated to lower levels.

•Rein in expectations: State-building involves often-competing objectives. We want the Afghans to do more but we want less corruption. Building the institutions to contain corruption takes time, but we want the government to get credit for better schools and health now. Finding a balance requires patience. Going slower, with fewer but more knowledgeable people working on fewer projects and spending less money stretched over longer time makes sense — if we can develop strategic patience.

•Develop “expeditionary” civilians willing to be deployed to danger zones critical to national security for years not months. The military has an “AfPak Hands” program to develop a cadre of 750 officers with knowledge and expertise to work on the region’s problems for five to seven years. Civilian agencies could do something similar, creating a team based in Washington, traveling frequently to the field, living in-country for up to 24 months, working the problem for four to five years, and developing the area and language expertise needed to do the job."