Humans

Missionaries of Rationality

It is always a sobering moment when people whom you believe to be your ideological allies disappoint you.

A few weeks ago, I started a crowdfunding campaign in order to assist veteran Urdu journalist, Shirin Dalvi, so that she could accumulate enough funds to start her own electronic news publication.
The established Urdu media has boycotted her following the publication of a Charlie-Hebdo cover in Avadhnama, a newspaper of which she was an editor.

I was pretty confident that atheists of all kinds would sympathise with her situation, given that a large part of our revulsion of religious doctrine is its ability to coerce dissenters into submission. The response of the community, however, was drastically different from my expectations.

The Entitled Atheist

I would have sympathised with her had she stood her ground. But she apologised and admitted that the cartoon publication was a genuine mistake on her part. We don’t need such journalists. If anything, it’s her very personal fight with fundamentalists of her own religion. Why should anybody else be interested?                -An Internet Atheist

If one interrogates random atheists on their opinion of Christian missionaries, it is very likely that their response will be less than positive, and for good reason. Conditional aid to people in peril is coercion. What the missionaries do can very rightly be construed as coercion of faith.
Want aid? Accept Jesus-amazeballs-Christ as your lord and saviour.
How is this any different from demanding a journalist persecuted by religion to relinquish her faith if she wants to receive aid from atheists? If atheists are to become an insular group like religious people, what are we doing differently? Is the commitment to non violence enough? Does the atheistic worldview not reserve any space for empathy and kindness?

Pulled in a thousand directions

Take a moment to look at this from the affected’s point of view. The religious establishment wants her to rot in eternal punishment for whatever imagined offense that she has committed. The law is on the offended party’s side. Prone to abuse draconian laws like 295(A) empower any offense takers to endlessly hound their targets. You apologise and compromise, or you go to jail. For a single mother responsible for feeding her children, prison is not an option. Add to this the demand from the atheists that she should leave her faith, in whatever progressive and non confrontational capacity she practices it, and become a card carrying atheist.

Flexibility of faith is a privilege

Visit any ex muslim group and they will tell you exactly how difficult and dangerous it is to relinquish Islam. Same story for other religions, differing only in magnitude. Is it ethical to coerce religious dissent in these situations? You either lose your career over hurt sentiments of religious people, or you relinquish your faith entirely and invite potentially violent retribution? These are the only two options left for religious people who want to do their jobs without religious influence? Can atheists with a clear conscience approve of this state of affairs? Is further violation the only recompense we have to offer to these people?I thought atheists were supposed to be the good folks.

Stifling Progress

Urdu language is an Indian language and it is spoken and understood , from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Because it is written right to left, there have been attempts to adapt this to Devanagari, but Urdu is beautiful in itself. Even though there are lot of newspapers and magazines in Urdu, there seems to be a void which is not being filled. It is the duty of a Newspaper to get the real news to its readers, to inform them of the impact of news, to transform the readers’ way of thinking, to help keep pace with the electronic media in the world, to wipe out the hate spread in the name of religion, to bring people closer. Media should never become an instrument to spread religion. Also, women need a platform so they can speak about their issues and talk about their rights. The newspaper’s policy should be a policy of truth. Without verifying information, no news should be put out as is happening nowadays. News is being distorted in order to sensationalize it. And Tabloids are becoming more common, which often misleads the reader. We will take care of these things especially because this is what real journalism is.               -Shirin Dalvi

When I asked Shirin her vision for the new paper she wants to launch, this is what she said(translated from Hindi). When I spoke to her more on the subject, she told me that there has always been an attempt to conflate Urdu the language and Islam. This she deems suboptimal. Language is a tool to communicate, record and reason about ideas. One specific ideology should not be mixed with a language. Her extreme disapproval of the utterly religious lens of most Urdu newspapers of the day was also very apparent to me.

Points of particular interest here are:

  • Media should never become an instrument to spread religion.
  • Women need a platform so they can speak about their issues and talk about their rights. (Muslim women in this context at least)

Are these not some of the exact things that atheists criticise moderate/progressive muslims of not championing? And when someone wants to do exactly that, the response is ill concealed condescension. This hypocrisy does not bode well for the movement.
If the progressive muslim does not find an ally in the atheist, what hope is there for the community?
Lastly, if we believe that there is no higher power looking out for us, that there is no order to the universe, that there is no predefined purpose to human life, then it follows that all we have is each other for support and encouragement. It would do our species well to act accordingly.

If interested, please donate to her Milaap campaign

Read more about her case here: