by MARYAM NAMAZIE
The Inclusive Mosque Initiative is organising “Beyond the Promise of Secularism” in response to our 25 November International Conference on Sharia, Segregation and Secularism.
Their event will apparently explore what they say are “western preoccupations with ‘Sharia Law’, Hijabs, and segregation” and “look at the ways Islam is pitted against ‘secularism’ in the name of women’s rights, equality and democracy, and … utilised and weaponised by the State against Muslim communities and other minorities to promote nationalist narratives.”
Given the Inclusive Mosque’s confusions, I hope our conference and its 38 speakers from 24 countries and the Diaspora, may assist them in understanding what secularism is before they venture “beyond secularism.” Leading activists in the fight against the far-Right – including religious fundamentalisms of all stripes – from Algeria, Bangladesh, Europe, India, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Kurdistan, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Serbia to Sudan, Tunisia and the United States – will reiterate the importance of secularism and universal values for women’s rights.
We can only hope that our conference will enable Inclusive Mosque to finally grasp that secularism is merely a framework that separates religion from the state to ensure that religion cannot influence the state and public policy and impose itself on private lives. After all, not everyone in a given society is a believer and even if they are, they don’t usually want the state to tell them how to believe. And what about the persecuted atheists and agnostics, like ex-Muslims, or minorities like the Christian Asia Bibi in Pakistan or Bahais in Iran or LGBT in Somalia and UAE?
Only a secular framework can ensure the equal rights of all citizens before the law and not different rights for different categories of communalised groups. It is only a secular framework that can ensure one law for all via changeable laws made by people versus unchangeable ‘divine’ laws imposed by clerics. It is a secular framework which can allow for multi-ethnic, multi-religious and plural societies and is a minimum precondition for the rights of women and minorities. It is a secular framework that can ensure freedom of conscience, including freedom of and from religion. Which is why there is no “Inclusive” Mosque – let alone a Council of Ex-Muslims – in places like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or Iran.
Maryam Namazie for more