Liberals loving Muslim Conservatism/Radicalism; Anti-colonialism vs Anti-Westernism

"Like many of my fellow progressive Muslims and ex-Muslims, I have been referred to as a “sellout,” an “Uncle Tom,” and an “Oreo” (implying I’m brown on the outside and white on the inside—a relatively appetizing slur compared to the others). I have been accused of “cozying up to the imperialist agenda” and being a “native informant,” a term used by Deepa Kumar, a journalism and media studies professor at Rutgers University, to describe ex-Muslims.

Keep in mind, these are all well-educated liberals who are dedicated to fighting “Islamophobia.” This is a key research interest of Professor Kumar, and Lean has even written a book entitled The Islamophobia Industry. There is an underlying narrative powering all of their work—that the West is oppressive and Islamism is somehow the third-world reaction to this oppression. As one would expect, the growing influence and audience of reformers, ex-Muslims, and liberals who recognize the problem of Islamism like Bill Maher and Sam Harris, pose a very inconvenient challenge to their narrative.

All of this begs several questions. What exactly is this “imperialist agenda”? And what does “cozying up” to it look like? And why is it that when a brown-skinned person rejects his ancestors’ religion to embrace secularism and liberal values, he is called a “sellout”?

What would a regressive leftist call the dissidents of Christian Europe centuries ago who stood up, fought, and died for the same secular values and liberty that today allow him or her to call dissidents in the Muslim world—who are trying to achieve the exact same thing in their societies—“sellouts”? Must all good brown boys think alike and have the same beliefs, lest they be “sellouts” to that well-oiled imperialist machine? Again, religion is not determined by skin color. How is it that Western, non-Muslim men like Greenwald, Lean, and Werleman are discrediting the narrative of people like Ayaan, who grew up in Somalia in a strict Muslim household, or Maajid, a former Islamist who spent five years in an Egyptian prison, demanding that they should conform to their narrative, and then demonizing them as “House Muslims” if they don’t?

The topic of imperialism is also a sore spot among my peers in Pakistan. There’s a pervasive sense that renouncing the Islamic religion somehow translates to abandoning your people. Even believing Muslims who merely adopt values seen as Western—free speech, secularism, liberalism, and so on—are thought of this way. Indeed, many South Asian Muslims have a glaring blind spot when it comes to imperialism.

Why do you speak against Islam?” they ask me. “This is our heritage, our identity. You are betraying your community by selling your soul to the imperialists and colonialists.” As dramatic as that sounds, it is a very close paraphrasing of what relatives, friends, and strangers alike have told me. If you still feel that it may be an exaggeration, consider that leaving Islam is considered a form of treason in Pakistan, and according to a 2013 Pew research poll, 62 percent of Pakistanis believe this apostasy should be punishable by death. Note also that by telling me I’m selling my soul to the imperialists, they are simply talking about my advocacy for secularism... Misogyny, for instance, doesn’t suddenly get a pass the moment it appears in a holy book. If you want to fight patriarchy but won’t fight religion, you’re not fighting patriarchy.

The notion that people from Muslim backgrounds who embrace progressive values or a critical approach toward their ancestors’ ancient beliefs are somehow “betraying” their identity and heritage suggests that the only true Muslim is a conservative Muslim. It also suggests that progress, freedom, and liberalism are somehow Western ideas that no self-respecting Muslim should adopt. And by labeling a Muslim reformer or ex-Muslim dissident a “lapdog,” “House Muslim,” or “native informant,” Western non-Muslim liberals, astoundingly, join the chorus and perpetuate this toxic idea...

As for my Pakistani Muslim friends who accuse me of betraying my heritage and being blindly obsequious to Western imperialism, I say only this:

Islam is an Arab religion. Consider that you are a person of South Asian heritage who:

• follows an Arab religion;
• reads and reveres an Arabic holy book;
• prays in Arabic;
• greets others in Arabic;
• reveres and emulates an Arab prophet; and
• bows in the direction of Arabia five times a day in prayer.

In light of this, how can you possibly accuse me of being part of an “imperialist agenda” with a straight face? Western imperialism (which I’m not a fan of either) isn’t the only imperialism out there. Read the history of your religion and how it was spread. Consider the Arab-Islamic imperialism of seventh-century Mecca, which spread as far west as Spain and east as India in a matter of decades, and to this day has an intractable chokehold on the lives and minds of over a billion people. From the language that you pray in, to the headscarves worn by your women, to meeting loved ones with the Arabic greeting As-salaam-u-alaikum, to your people showing more solidarity with Palestinians than Kashmiris, to a majority of your people believing that apostates from this Arab faith must be killed—this foreign ideology has transformed your heritage and history in a way that you can hardly recognize it. How is Western imperialism any different? If you oppose Western imperialism but not the Arab-Islamic imperialism of the seventh century, you’re not anti-imperialism—you’re just anti-West."

--- The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason / Ali A. Rizvi