Religious victimisation of women

This is a sensitive subject, isn’t it? Simply because it involves people’s irrational beliefs. It would not be controversial in any other context. It must be faced up to, without fear, by all of us, in this context too.

I have just received my e-mail newsletter from the National Secular Society and it links to an excellent article by Johann Hari about a lady called Mina Ahadi, who has just won the Secularist of the Year prize. With this article, and with others, Mr Hari excuses his dumbing-down appearance on the trash that is Big Brother.

Says the newsletter:

“Mina Ahadi started her serious political activities when she was 16 and living in Iran. She was at university in 1979 in Tabriz at the time of the Iranian revolution and she began immediately to organise demonstrations and meetings to oppose the compulsory veiling of women. This courageous dissent got her noticed by the Islamic regime’s authorities and soon she had to go underground to avoid retribution.

At the end of 1980 her house was raided by the police and her husband and four of their comrades arrested. Mina escaped only because she wasn’t at home at the time.

Her husband and the four arrested were all executed by firing squad soon after. She lived underground for some time and then fled to Iranian Kurdistan in 1982, where she continued to struggle against the Islamic regime for the next ten years. In 1990 she went to Vienna. She moved to Germany in 1996 and has lived in Europe since then.”

Mr Hari in his article rightly challenges the disgusting liberal relativists who seek to excuse religious people for their absurd beliefs. People: the Iranians follows these rules because they are clearly stated in the Koran. They are following their religion properly. It is with the religious texts themselves that the problems lie (“lie” being the operative word).

I shall say no more and hand over to Mr Dawkins himself, whose humanist eloquence seemingly never fails:

“I have long felt that the key to solving the worldwide menace of Islamic terrorism and oppression would eventually be the awakening of women, and Mina Ahadi is a charismatic leader working to that end. The brutal suppression of the rights of women in many countries throughout the Islamic world is an obvious outrage.

Slightly less obvious, but just as outrageous, is the supine willingness of western liberals to go along with it. It is worse than supine, it is patronising and condescending: “Wife-beating is part of ‘their’ culture. Who are we to condemn their traditions?”

A religion so insecure as to mandate the death penalty for apostasy is not to be trifled with, and ex-Muslims who stand up and fight deserve our huge admiration and gratitude for their courage. Right out in front of this honourable band is Mina Ahadi. I salute her and congratulate her on this well-deserved award as Secularist of the Year.”