Category: Notes
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Pret-A-Patriarchy – on “modest” fashion
The below was published in The New European on 31 May 2018 “Modest” fashion is a fast growing industry with companies like Dolce & Gabbana, H&M, Marks and Spencer, DKNY, Zara and others all rushing to cash in. But while more choice is undoubtedly good, I have a problem with the labelling. Positioning some types…
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Demand for atheism rises in countries under Islamic rule
My latest column in The Freethinker. The scientist and author Richard Dawkins is giving away translations of The God Delusion in countries under Islamic rule like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan. The reason behind the decision is the thirst for atheism in such countries. Whilst 3.3 million copies of the bestseller have been sold since 2006, the unofficial…
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God: A Human History – a rescue attempt by Reza Aslan
My new piece in The Freethinker. “Religion scholar” Reza Aslan’s new book, God: A Human History (Bantam Press, £18.99), traces the human relationship with God-types from the Palaeolithic, Greek, and Egyptian eras to the rise of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Aslan’s history highlights the ongoing compulsion to attribute human characteristics onto Gods over millennia and…
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Gender segregation is humiliating and damaging
Segregation was humiliating. Just the reality of signs that said you couldn’t use front doors or you couldn’t use this water fountain implied that you were subhuman … Every time I complied with a sign, I felt like I was acquiescing to my own inhumanity. I felt outraged and hated it. – Diane Nash, a leader of…
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Fighting against Islam and Islamism
Here is my speech at the 40th Freedom from Religion Foundation Convention in Madison, WI during 15-17 September whilst receiving the Henry H. Zumach Freedom From Religious Fundamentalism award:
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Pride parade in Vancouver rejects Iranian over veil float
The below piece was first published in The Freethinker. Iranian Shawn Shirazi and his group Cirque de So Gay were denied entry to the Pride Parade in Vancouver, Canada this year because their float criticising the veil was deemed to be ‘culturally [in]sensitive’. In the application for Cirque de So Gay, he wrote: Our entry in the…
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Pride has the chance to do the right thing
28 July 2017 Michael Salter-Church Alison Camps Co-Chairs – Pride in London Dear Michael Salter-Church and Alison Camps Thank you for your letter dated 21 July addressed to CEMB (available below). The crux of the issue, which you have failed to recognise, is this: Pride in London has taken complaints against the Council of Ex-Muslims…
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Your beliefs are not more important than mine
I’m getting lots of these Facebook messages in messenger (in addition to all the other charming ones from sensitive souls who are so hurt by women’s bodies and criticism of Islam that they have no more sensitivity left in them for murder and mayhem.) Let me respond here en masse: I find your religion offensive,…
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In Toronto LGBT Iranians were branded as ‘Islamophobes’
My latest piece in The Freethinker. At Toronto Pride on June 25 some ‘anti-fascists’ surrounded Iranian refugees and LGBTQ activists and absurdly chanted ‘No Hate at Pride’ – as if defending LGBTQ people in Iran or countries under Islamic rule is ‘hateful’. Police intervention ensured that they weren’t able to stop the Iranians from joining…
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No Apologies
This is my letter to you, not you the racist or Islamist but you who I should call friend: I Accuse. Published in sister-hood, 27 June 2017. Spanish Translation This is my letter to you. Not you, the Islamist, who wants me silent or dead whilst dreaming of your vile caliphate, nor you, the racist,…
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Islamists want their terrorism to become the new normal
This month’s piece in The Freethinker. Since 1 June – that’s one week – there have been 25 terrorist attacks, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, Somalia and the UK. The latest took place today in Iran. Islamists want their terrorism to become the new normal. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, women sex slaves…
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Religion is fundamentally patriarchal and anti-woman
Below is my monthly column for The Freethinker entitled: Religion is fundamentally patriarchal and anti-woman, 25 May 2016 As US suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton once said: You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded woman. In one Hadith, Mohammed, Islam’s prophet…