Welcome Back to Dissent Dispatch

This week brings sobering reminders of the consequences of defying religious orthodoxy. In South Africa, the murder of Muhsin Hendricks—a pioneering figure who sought to reconcile Islam with LGBT+ rights—underscores the deadly risks of challenging doctrine. In London, a Qur’an-burning incident resulted in violence, and yet it is the attack victim who now faces charges for “religious harassment.” And in Tajikistan, the government’s attempt to curb Islam’s influence by dictating women’s dress is just another form of coercion. The fight for true freedom—of belief, speech, and personal autonomy—continues.

The Unbelief Brief

Many of you will have already heard of the horrible news out of South Africa, where Muhsin Hendricks, one of Africa's few gay imams, and perhaps the most prominent, was shot dead. He had been in the city of Gqbehra (formerly Port Elizabeth), reportedly to officiate the marriage of an “interfaith heterosexual” couple, at the time of his murder. While no motive is officially confirmed, it beggars belief that his status as an important symbol of transgression against Islamic sexual mores while occupying a position of authority played no role. This is the saddening but easily predictable consequence of dissent, particularly in the realm of sex and gender roles, in a religion that encourages violent punishment.

It is true that any plain reading of Islamic scripture renders the religion’s inherent homophobia undeniable. But it is also true that reducing the injustices committed against LGBT+ individuals in the name of the faith requires voices like Hendricks’ just as much as those of outright opposition. However naive his project to reconcile a homophobic belief system with pluralism and tolerance, his refusal to surrender to hateful dogma in life was courageous and praiseworthy. It may be that he has achieved martyrdom, in a decidedly different sense than his own religion defines it — giving his life for the betterment of mankind.

In Europe, meanwhile, another Qur’an-burning incident: a man outside the Turkish consulate in London burning the Islamic holy text was attacked by a man wielding a knife. (Though the Qur’an burner was not stabbed, he was beaten to the ground, kicked, and spat on.) The UK has not quite reached the point of excusing the attacker’s actions (yet), as he too was arrested, but both men have now been charged with crimes: the assailant with “causing actual bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon,” and the attack victim with “religiously motivated harassment.” 

It is unclear how the man was harassing anyone by simply standing on the sidewalk in one place, but a conviction seems likely, given how aggressively the UK tends to respond to such “hate speech.” EXMNA’s position on this has not and will not change: just as burning a flag is a legitimate exercise of the right to free expression, so too is desecration of a religious text. Arguments otherwise are incompatible with the values of free, secular, and democratic societies.

Finally, Tajikistan is continuing its effort to remove the cultural influence of Islam from its society, most recently announcing its plans to release a “book of guidelines” for how women should dress, where, and at what ages. Islam’s imposition of “modesty culture”  in an effort to engender obedience among women is detestable, but this effort at social engineering from the Tajik government is almost as bad, in many ways simply representing a mirror image of religious coercion. The reason head coverings are such potent symbols of oppression is their intent: to muzzle women, figuratively and even literally. The cure is not another forcible imposition.

Until next week,

The Team at Ex-Muslims of North America

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