CN: ASSAULT, SEXISM, RACISM, KINK
On today's episode, I talk to Heina Dadabhoy about growing up Muslim, the misconceptions of Islam, and when criticizing Islam becomes racism.
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Transcription:
Trav: Welcome to the Bi Any means podcast, the place where
social justice and humanism meet. Hello and welcome to another episode of the
Bi Any Means podcast, the podcast companion to bianymeans.com. I am Trav Mamone
and my guest today is Heina Dadabhoy. They are a former contributor to Skepchick,
and they are currently blogging at Heinous Dealings at Free Thought Blogs.
Heina, thanks for joining me today.
Heina: My pleasure.
Trav: Now for those who don’t know I previously did an
email interview with Heina a few months ago on Bi Any Means but with the
podcast my audience is starting to grow. For those who missed our previous
conversation, can you tell us about growing up Muslim and what eventually led
you to atheism?
Heina: Well, I grew up as a Muslim in sunny southern
California. I was very religious. In fact, more religious than my family at
points, and that also meant I read a lot of religious texts. I knew a lot of
things about the religion that everyone around me claimed to believe in and
follow but that they didn’t know, things that led me to doubts but never too
strong. When 9/11 happened I was actually in high school. It was my second day
of high school but while it didn’t make me immediately di-convert it did make
me further examine my beliefs especially since so many people around me were
asking me questions, and asking me to justify my beliefs and my religion.
Then
that led to several years of doubt in high school. I started reading things
outside of religious texts, picked up a few autobiographies of people who were
free thinkers, people who were queer, things like that. Eventually I got to
college when I was 17 and I started taking different classes, and I took a
philosophy class that was on the philosophy behind what’s the theology of the
Catholic Church. Essentially the writings of Augustine, and I realized that a
lot of what Augustine was saying was the exact same thing my family had been
saying to me for years and years, and what my religious teachers had been
saying to me for years and years to justify Islam.
Yet
Augustine ended up founding the Catholic Church in its modern form in a lot of
ways. I realized that it was in congress that you could start with the same
premises, and end up with a different conclusion. I scaled back from very
religious Muslim to sort of secular deist, Muslim flavored but eventually
realized through various readings of biology, and more philosophy that I didn’t
really believe in a creator deity either, and I joke that I fell into a black
hole for six months because I’ve always been an avid writer.
I
always kept personal journals of my thoughts that I was so afraid of my
thoughts I’d stopped journaling for six months, and at the end of that I came
out an atheist.
Trav: Okay. What inspired you to start blogging about Islam
atheism and feminism?
Heina: I actually started blogging about being an ex-Muslim
when I first came out as an ex-Muslim about nine years ago. It was an anonymous
blog but I guess my style, and my voice, and my experiences are so distinct
that people figured out who I was, and I shut down my blog out of fear for my
own safety, and the safety of my family because allegedly there were threats
going around in the local community. I stopped. I kept relatively quiet for a
while but I started getting more involved with the atheist spear as it were.
They
were volunteering at local conferences, and events and I actually became aware
of the atheist blogosphere more and more through essentially what we call Elevatorgate
Dear Muslima, and I started tweeting about it because I remember … I didn’t
know much about Rebeca Watson oddly enough. I knew about that incident, and
thought wow, if she had gone up into somebody’s hotel room, and she had been
sexually assaulted they would have blamed her and said, “Don’t you know better.
Why would you go to some guy’s room?” and yet because she said that she didn’t
go they were somehow having a hissy fit too. I saw the fact that you know, a
lot of the times as women, women can’t win in these situations.
I
started talking about it, and I became more and more aware of the atheist
blogosphere, and through that Skepchick was looking for contributors in a very
active way with more diverse backgrounds. Since I do have that I applied. I
didn’t expect to get in because I thought you had to have some sort of magical
qualifications but apparently my writings samples were good, and so I joined
Skepchick. At first I mostly talked about sexism because obviously it was the
hot button issue, and I also had a lot to get off my chest.
Since
even though I wasn’t active on the national scene, or as a blogger I was active
locally, and I was really sick of the attitudes I deal with in the local
community from men. I did end up writing about Islam also based on frustration
because the first thing I wrote on Skepchick about Islam was demystification of
the 72 virgins thing, and that ended up being incredibly popular. It got passed
around a lot. My then hero now current hero and friend Greta Christina tweeted
it, and I remember squealing very loudly, and flailing, and jumping around the
room when I saw that.
I
realized that there was a market out there for writers who would write about
Islam, but also feminism, and just have … I guess my perspective helped with
that. That’s how I got started there.
Trav: Great. Now, with the Charlie Hebdo attack this past
January seems like everyone has an opinion about Islam, and you’ve talked about
all he varying arguments. People talking from Reza Aslan to Bill Maher. First
of all, I guess the best thing to ask you first is, what’s the biggest
misconception people have about Islam?
Heina: It’s a misconception that’s based on I think what
happens to a lot of minority groups, and there’s this idea that we don’t have
to say not all Christians bomb abortion clinics because we know that because
living in the west and living in the US there’s a lot representation for
different kinds of people and different kinds of Christians. In fact, if you
are white and appear to be quote “normal people” will assume that you are a
Christian.
We don’t have to do that but with
Muslims like with any minority group whether it’s religious or whether it’s religious,
or ethnic, or both in the case of Muslims based on stereotypes, you have this
thing where if you know about one Muslim, or hear about one Muslim, or learn
one thing about Islam you assume it’s true for all of them. That goes for
positive and negative things. A lot of the times that the issue if someone
hears one thing, or sees something about one incident, or gets to know one
Muslim, and they think that person or that incident, or that perception applies
to every Muslim in all iterations of Islam.
It’s hard to humanize and
diversify one’s views of a minority group but it’s obviously incredibly
worthwhile because it leads to a much more realistic understanding of reality.
Trav: Right. I forgot my place … okay, here we go. When it
comes to ISIS, and Islamic terrorism the debate always comes back to the
question of how much of it is true Islam or how much of it is just
fundamentalism. From your perspective how much of it is “true Islam”?
Heina: It’s a tough question because as a Muslim I was very
resentful of Muslims who claimed the title but didn’t really seem to care to
follow the religion, and so I still have a streak of that in me somewhere
especially since a lot of these progressive and liberal Muslim … I wouldn’t say
progressively, liberal Muslims. I should say non-practicing Muslims. I am
related to a lot of non-practicing Muslims and they laud over me because I’m
the atheist. They say, “Well, at least we are believers. You are not a
believer,” and I’m looking at them, “You are not practicing your religion. Why does
your belief make you a superior person to me?”
I have a bit of resentment there
but I try to look at it from a sort of anthropological or sociological
perspective where there is no way to really say what the true Islam is. You ask
Muslim you get one thing. You another Muslim you get the other thing. I don’t
necessarily think that the debate about what is true Islam and what is not is
even that meaningful. What it comes down is I think with these fundamentalists,
and terrorists or what do they think is motivating them? How can we stop them
from causing harm because I don’t know if it is especially not up to outsiders
in the religion, which in some ways I am now since I don’t follow it to really
determine what’s true Islam and what’s not.
Trav: Right. Coming back to what you were saying earlier
about someone knows about one incident, or one Muslim and base their entire
view of Islam around that it seems to me like most of the atheists that I’ve
heard who talk about Islam are all white people who have never been Muslims. Jaclyn
Glenn, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Bill Maher, etc. and whenever I mention
this people yell back, “So what?” or, “What about Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Salman
Rushdie?” Those two are like the two primary sources people seem to have when
it comes to talking about Islam.
Their
stories matter, absolutely but everyone has their own story. I was wondering, how
hard has it been for you to have your story heard?
Heina: It’s I guess it’s … I’ve only been on the scene for a
couple of years. I always try to take that into account. Thankfully things are
getting a little bit better in the sense that people are starting to care more
about hearing for more ex-Muslims but yeah, it is true that the more atheists
who talk about Islam tend to be white or Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I wouldn’t even say
Salman Rushdie. He doesn’t really talk about Islam very much. He lives his
life. He‘s a white male novelist except he’s brown in a lot of ways. He sleeps
with models, and he goes to the parties, and everybody thinks he’s cool because
he had a fatwa. I don’t even know if he’s really much of a voice on Islam
necessarily this days.
Yeah,
there’s Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and she does have this very incredibly horrific back
story. I try not to talk too much crap but I definitely feel like there’s more
room for more voices, and more nuance. It has been difficult because I don’t
have this compelling tragic story, and sometimes people get angry at me for not
having more of a tragic story.
They
are like well, shouldn’t you … shouldn’t have this happened to you, or
shouldn’t have that happened to you, or maybe your family wasn’t even that
religious because yes, my family is … was and still is very religious.
Thankfully like I said though people are starting to listen, and we actually
have an organization now, Ex-Muslims of North America. That is helping to get
the word out, and get more attention towards a more nuanced and diverse voice
for ex-Muslims.
Trav: That’s good. Some people like Sam Harris say there’s
no such thing as islamophobia. Do you agree or disagree?
Heina: That word islamophobia people get fixated on the word.
They’ll say there’s no such thing as being discriminatory towards a religion
because a religion is a choice. It’s a philosophy, and it’s a theology, and we
should be able to criticize ideas. I don’t use the word because again that touches off that whole debate can
you be phobic of an idea and things like that. I use the term anti-Muslim
bigotry, which is essentially what islamophobia means but people don’t
understand it. I feel like anti-Muslim bigotry is a much clearer term, and
people understand what that means.
I
think that is a very real thing. People have this stereotype in their heads of
what Muslims look like, and so even on-Muslims, or never-Muslims, or ex-Muslims
get subjected to anti-Muslim bigotry even though we are not Muslim. That is a
very real thing, and that is something that I still deal with today. Taking off
my headscarf didn’t make any less brown, didn’t make me any less
“Middle-Eastern looking” and people still assume I’m Arab or assume that I have
some sort of loyalty towards Islam or affiliation with it. Yeah, that’s a very
thing and that’s something that needs to be combated actively.
Trav: Right, you are actually running a book about Islam, A
Skeptics Guide to Islam. Tell us a little about that.
Heina: Yes, well for anyone who backed me I continue to be
sorry for the delays but as far as the book itself it’s really me. It’s an FAQ
in a lot ways. It’s based on my experiences within the atheist, and skeptic,
and secular communities, and what people tend to ask me, or what comes first to
mind for them when they find out that I’m a former Muslim. Some of it is based
on frustration where I just wanted to be able to throw a book at someone and
say, “Here, just read this. I don’t want to explain it again,” and some of it
is also just based on what I think … would be for people to know about Islam
because if you are going to criticize a religion at the very least your terms
right.
People
can’t even say the word Muslim correctly. Where do they come off even trying to
discuss the nuances of Ismail theology? If they really want to I feel like it
would be hoven to learn a little bit, and there are anti- Muslim sources you
can get about Islam, and they are very pro- Muslim forces you can get but I
feel I’m uniquely positioned in that I left Islam, and I have no deep and
abiding love for Islam but I don’t dehumanize Muslims, and I feel like there’s
room for more nuanced approach. That’s what I hope to bring with it.
Trav: Right, right. I think you definitely hit the nail on
the head when you talk about how people tend to … to me I know I sound like a
parrot saying this because I’ve said it so many times. If an idea doesn’t hold
any water it should be openly criticized but I think a lot of times in the
atheist community a lot of atheists tend to confuse criticizing an idea with
like throwing an entire group of people under the bus. Especially towards
Muslims, and Islam where it’s not just simply … the whole idea of Mohamed
flying to heaven on a horse is ridiculous, or the whole idea of honor killing,
that’s bad. That needs to stop.
I
don’t know. It seems to me like a lot of atheists think that the Koran is Mein
Kampf part 2.
Heina: Well, part one because it was written before Mein Kampf.
Right but yeah. It’s true. People make fun of the ridiculous parts of
Christianity but they make fun of Muslims in a way that is very racist but they
claim its criticism of Islam. I posted this as an example in one of my posts
about anti-Muslim bigotry it was essentially Amin that was making fun of
Muslims as using bestiality. Basically saying Muslims fuck goats. That was the
big criticism. How is that criticizing Islam?
Or
that name that was going around for a while that on the left there were some
ring wraith from Lord of the Rings, and on the right were some women in full
burqas so black the black entire body covering garments. The caption was one of
these things is an emblem of hate, and one of these things is a character from
Lord of the Rings. That I thought, okay, that’s not really criticism the
theology behind it. That is criticizing people. These are pictures of people,
and you don’t know the background stories of those women. What makes them
hateful for wearing a garment, and it actually really upset me, and I ended up
getting into a knock down, smack down argument, and I almost lost a friend over
it, which tends to happen.
To
me that’s not helping, and it’s not criticizing, and it’s not doing good in the
world. People are just getting their jollies from it, and that to me it’s not
good criticism of a religion. That’s just disguising your bigotry with “I’m
criticizing religion.”
Trav: Right, definitely. One final question about Islam.
This is something that I’ve asked a lot of people and I’ve gotten different
answer, is it possible to criticize problematic verses in the Koran, and
Islamic religious dogma, and certain Islamic practices, and still be an ally to
Muslims who face persecution?
Heina: I think so. Not to put myself on some kind of pedestal because
I’m still learning, and I screw up all the time, and I’m grateful when that’s
pointed out but I try. I do both. There are parts in the Koran and the Hadith
that yes, I find disgusting, and abhorrent, and that vilify, and demonize, and sentence
me to death for who I am, and what I am. But at the same time Muslims often
suffer the most under such verses, and I like to be an ally to those Muslims
who are working towards an Islam that is less fixated on those particular
verses, and is more concerned with other things.
In
fact at creating change this year in Denver, the National LGBT task force
conference I met up with a Muslim queer group called MASGD, Muslim Alliance for
Sexual and Gender Diversity. Pretty great initials there but they were great,
and we got along really well, and I’m thinking of reaching out to them to work
with them on things. As queer Muslims, as gender non-confirming Muslims they
had a lot in common with me. They had very similar family struggle to me. They
simply choose to self-identify as Muslims, and focus on other parts of Islam
besides the homophobic parts whereas I’m just out of Islam.
We
have a lot of the same goals, and a lot of the same priorities. I definitely
would consider myself an ally to them.
Trav: Good, good, switching gears for a little bit. You’ve
written about being in the Kink community. I have to ask, have you seen a lot
of newcomers to the Kink community who only know what they’ve read about in 50
Shades of Grey, and if so how fucking annoying is it?
Heina: Well, I can’t say I’m super current or with it with the
Kink scene lately for reasons that I’ve enumerated in posts about the racism in
the community. I haven’t even started touching on the sexism there yet but I
backed way from the Kink community but I do have a lot of friends who are
active participants, and I do occasionally get to events where that involve
kinky people where there’s a play party or just a social mixer, and I don’t
think it’s as much of a problem as people think it is.
There
have always been people who read something, or saw something, or had some idea
in their head, and they show up at a Kink gathering. They pretty quickly weed
themselves out if they are not really interested in learning more. I think the
biggest problem with 50 Shades is not the people who go to the Kink community
because of 50 Shades. It’s the people who don’t go, and try to replicate what
they see or what they read without any understanding of what they are doing.
Trav: Right.
Heina: That’s the part that scares me because of the tying
methods I saw in the trailer to 50 Shades didn’t look right.
Trav: Right. Well, that’s about it for me. Anything else
you’d like to add like any upcoming projects?
Heina: Well, not really any projects yet but I’m giving a
couple of talks coming up, and I have to look at my calendar but I guess I
should always plug my blog. It’s Heinous Dealings on the Freethoughts Blogs
network. There you can find everything from my blog post which I update four to
five times a week. On the left I also have lots of resources for other people
to read if you are interested in learning more about Islam.
I
have a pretty big listing of progressive and [inaudible 00:22:07] sources to
look at, and I also have a list of my upcoming appearances. That’s another good
place to look.
Trav: All right. Thanks again for joining me today Heina.
Heina: You’re welcome.
Trav: Thanks to listening to the Bi Any Means podcast. The
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you like what you have heard please subscribe via iTunes and go to www.bianymeans.com for more musings of a queer
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