It’s time for the world to have a frank discussion about Islam and how it fits into modern societies that respect human rights. It’s an elephant in the room and ignoring it has real costs.One of the worst examples was in Rotherham UK where young girls were recruited, groomed and raped for decades by gangs of Pakistani men. The Jay Report estimates over 1,400 young women were victims of these gangs. The number is likely much higher since so many of these crimes went unreported.How was it that these monsters were able to assail young women for so long without it being exposed? It’s because the perpetrators were Islamic Pakistanis and authorities didn’t want to touch the issue for fear of putting Islam in a bad light. It is one of the most shameful acts of state cowardice in modern history. The crimes were reported for decades, yet action was muted for fear of upsetting the Islamic community. Meanwhile, the rapes of young girls continued.No, not every Muslim is an extremist or a rapist. In fact, the vast majority of them are peaceful folks. But let’s quit pretending Islam doesn’t spawn more extremists than any other religion though.Part of it is an ingrained cultural and religious disrespect for women. Women are considered property in traditional Islamic cultures. In Islamic nations they are to be traded, beaten and even stoned to death for the crime of adultery which usually means they let themselves be raped. Yes, rape victims are considered the perpetrators in traditional Islamic states. That’s why they are whipped for daring to show their faces or hair in some countries, and why “honour killings” for women who dare to have relations with men their families don’t approve of, still happen by the thousands.There are 57 member states in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. These are nations dominated by Islamic populations and usually governed under some form of theocratic rule. There are a few that are considered democracies, though they are rife with corruption and defined as “flawed democracies” at best. The rest are outright dictatorships. Many of those nations are skirmishing or warring with their neighbours and when those wars are resolved they tend to descend into sectarian civil wars since Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims can't be in the same room together.When Islamic nations are “liberated”, the freedoms are temporary at best. In Afghanistan, women are abused and barred from even seeking an education while Iraq lowered the age for marriage to 9 years for girls.Women fare badly enough in the Islamic world, but LGBTQ people have it even worse. It’s illegal to be gay in every Islamic nation and the penalty is often death through savage means such as throwing them from buildings. The first openly gay Muslim Imam was murdered just weeks ago. The silence from the purple-haired gender advocates in North America is deafening.While the constant wars break out in Islamic nations, floods of young, fighting age male refugees pour into other nations. Since opening their borders to Syrian refugees in 2017, European nations have been dealing with domestic nightmares as the influx refuses to integrate into the new culture. Parts of Paris are virtual war zones while Germany endured a rape-fest carried out by North African migrants during New Year’s Eve festivals in 2016. Many nations have influxes of migrants but it rarely leads to the challenges that come with sudden numbers of Islamic migrants. Women aren’t afraid to walk in a city’s Chinatown.Attacks on crowds carried out by Islamist extremists with vehicles and knives are becoming more frequent but even when they scream “Allahu Akbar!” and are in possession of Islamic State flags when they commit their acts of terrorism, media and politicians are quick to state they aren’t sure what the motive of the attacker may be.No other religion has so many violent responses to relatively minor slights against it. Five people were murdered in France for publishing cartoons. Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was stabbed to death for making a film critical of Islam. Author Salman Rushdie has endured multiple assassination attempts and has had to live in hiding since releasing a book critical of Islam in the 80s. In Nigeria, riots in response to a beauty pageant led to the deaths of over 200 people. The common denominator in these incidents is stark.Let’s quit pretending the Israel conflict isn’t rooted in Islam. While 1.7 million Muslims reside in Israel with full rights, Jews have been driven from every Islamic nation. Islamists in the Middle East can’t abide by even a single Jew in Israel and rest assured their goal is eradication. They don’t even try to hide it when they chant the genocidal line “from the river to the sea” at every opportunity. The only one’s denying the intent to wipe every Jew out of Israel by neighbouring Islamists are Western liberals.The hate-filled pro-Hamas protests continue to clog Canadian streets while they target Jewish neighbourhoods. The protests almost always involve Islamic prayers in the middle of roads so again, let’s not pretend there isn’t an Islamist basis to this.Religions are thought systems. They aren’t immutable like race is. Every religion should be open to critique and most are. It’s only when one is critical of Islam that the accusations of bigotry come followed by cancelation efforts. It’s not a matter of being intolerant. It’s a matter of being a modern thinker.I am not proposing banning Islam. Freedom of religion is essential. I am saying that there is something inherent in Islam that makes it difficult for its deepest adherents to live comfortably with others. It must be discussed. Other religions experienced reformations and evolved with the modern world. It’s time to examine how Islam can start to do the same.We must begin by admitting there’s a problem.
It’s time for the world to have a frank discussion about Islam and how it fits into modern societies that respect human rights. It’s an elephant in the room and ignoring it has real costs.One of the worst examples was in Rotherham UK where young girls were recruited, groomed and raped for decades by gangs of Pakistani men. The Jay Report estimates over 1,400 young women were victims of these gangs. The number is likely much higher since so many of these crimes went unreported.How was it that these monsters were able to assail young women for so long without it being exposed? It’s because the perpetrators were Islamic Pakistanis and authorities didn’t want to touch the issue for fear of putting Islam in a bad light. It is one of the most shameful acts of state cowardice in modern history. The crimes were reported for decades, yet action was muted for fear of upsetting the Islamic community. Meanwhile, the rapes of young girls continued.No, not every Muslim is an extremist or a rapist. In fact, the vast majority of them are peaceful folks. But let’s quit pretending Islam doesn’t spawn more extremists than any other religion though.Part of it is an ingrained cultural and religious disrespect for women. Women are considered property in traditional Islamic cultures. In Islamic nations they are to be traded, beaten and even stoned to death for the crime of adultery which usually means they let themselves be raped. Yes, rape victims are considered the perpetrators in traditional Islamic states. That’s why they are whipped for daring to show their faces or hair in some countries, and why “honour killings” for women who dare to have relations with men their families don’t approve of, still happen by the thousands.There are 57 member states in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. These are nations dominated by Islamic populations and usually governed under some form of theocratic rule. There are a few that are considered democracies, though they are rife with corruption and defined as “flawed democracies” at best. The rest are outright dictatorships. Many of those nations are skirmishing or warring with their neighbours and when those wars are resolved they tend to descend into sectarian civil wars since Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims can't be in the same room together.When Islamic nations are “liberated”, the freedoms are temporary at best. In Afghanistan, women are abused and barred from even seeking an education while Iraq lowered the age for marriage to 9 years for girls.Women fare badly enough in the Islamic world, but LGBTQ people have it even worse. It’s illegal to be gay in every Islamic nation and the penalty is often death through savage means such as throwing them from buildings. The first openly gay Muslim Imam was murdered just weeks ago. The silence from the purple-haired gender advocates in North America is deafening.While the constant wars break out in Islamic nations, floods of young, fighting age male refugees pour into other nations. Since opening their borders to Syrian refugees in 2017, European nations have been dealing with domestic nightmares as the influx refuses to integrate into the new culture. Parts of Paris are virtual war zones while Germany endured a rape-fest carried out by North African migrants during New Year’s Eve festivals in 2016. Many nations have influxes of migrants but it rarely leads to the challenges that come with sudden numbers of Islamic migrants. Women aren’t afraid to walk in a city’s Chinatown.Attacks on crowds carried out by Islamist extremists with vehicles and knives are becoming more frequent but even when they scream “Allahu Akbar!” and are in possession of Islamic State flags when they commit their acts of terrorism, media and politicians are quick to state they aren’t sure what the motive of the attacker may be.No other religion has so many violent responses to relatively minor slights against it. Five people were murdered in France for publishing cartoons. Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was stabbed to death for making a film critical of Islam. Author Salman Rushdie has endured multiple assassination attempts and has had to live in hiding since releasing a book critical of Islam in the 80s. In Nigeria, riots in response to a beauty pageant led to the deaths of over 200 people. The common denominator in these incidents is stark.Let’s quit pretending the Israel conflict isn’t rooted in Islam. While 1.7 million Muslims reside in Israel with full rights, Jews have been driven from every Islamic nation. Islamists in the Middle East can’t abide by even a single Jew in Israel and rest assured their goal is eradication. They don’t even try to hide it when they chant the genocidal line “from the river to the sea” at every opportunity. The only one’s denying the intent to wipe every Jew out of Israel by neighbouring Islamists are Western liberals.The hate-filled pro-Hamas protests continue to clog Canadian streets while they target Jewish neighbourhoods. The protests almost always involve Islamic prayers in the middle of roads so again, let’s not pretend there isn’t an Islamist basis to this.Religions are thought systems. They aren’t immutable like race is. Every religion should be open to critique and most are. It’s only when one is critical of Islam that the accusations of bigotry come followed by cancelation efforts. It’s not a matter of being intolerant. It’s a matter of being a modern thinker.I am not proposing banning Islam. Freedom of religion is essential. I am saying that there is something inherent in Islam that makes it difficult for its deepest adherents to live comfortably with others. It must be discussed. Other religions experienced reformations and evolved with the modern world. It’s time to examine how Islam can start to do the same.We must begin by admitting there’s a problem.
