Every time someone wishes to discuss Islam and its incompatibility with our modern society that individual gets brutally attacked, labeled an Islamophobe and ultimately shut down.
Are there Islamiphobes out there who truly hate Islam and Muslims? Yes, such people do exist in our societies. However, there is a distinction to be made, and a line to be drawn between hateful people and people seeking to engage in civil discourse in an attempt to help Muslim communities in the west, as well as Muslim majority countries in the east to jump onto the modernization train.
This is a very sensitive topic to many, and it usually ignites whataboutism which only serves to stall this civil discourse, and prevent us from having an open discussion that have the potential to address the many infested issues within Islamic communities.
In the name of tolerance, inclusion and sensitivity we are being forced into silence. Silence on such matters only empowers authoritarian theocracies such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, Furthermore, such silence only benefits a handful of Imams whose power to coerce Muslims into submitting to their version of religiosity stems from keeping them in the dark and away from enlightening and modern beliefs. Therefore, we ought to speak out and utilize such magnificent modern free-speech platforms to voice our opinions.
We must speak of women rights in Islamic communities given that a women’s testimony in an Islamic court is counted as a half testimony, because women are not equal to men. We must speak of the many women who are subjected to torture and even death in the name of family honor simply because an adult women engaged in a consensual sexual relationship. We must speak of bisexuals who are being sentenced to hundreds of lashes in public or even death simply due to their sexual orientation. We must speak of child brides whose innocence is being demolished in the name of ignorant cultural customs and practices. We must speak of apostates who are being killed for no other reason than practicing their freedom of thought and belief. We must speak of religious minorities (including Muslims who belong to a minority school of thought) within Islamic communities who are perceived as infidels, and thus must face God’s punishment on earth.
We must speak of all the things mentioned above and much more. We shouldn’t allow the ideals of tolerance and inclusion that are pillars of western societies to cloud our discourse and coerce us into silence. At the contrary we ought to speak out because we believe in those ideals.