Islam and I

This post is about my personal relationship with and my family history regarding Islam, and my viewpoints on Islam today. If you would like to know why I am writing such a post, I refer you to my previous post.

My mother and father raised me as a Baha'i, a religion that originated in Persia (now Iran) in the middle of the 19th century. Baha'is have been systematically persecuted by Muslim authorities since the origin of the religion. I heard stories from childhood about the torture and murder of Baha'is in an effort to get them to recant. Unsurprisingly, the current Islamic Revolutionary government of Iran is extremely hostile to the Baha'is. At present Baha'is are not allowed to attend schools and are frequently jailed on flimsy charges, and at various points have involved executions. The Baha'i Faith is still believed to be the largest religious minority in Iran, but there is no official headcount because the government does not officially recognize them as a religion.

My father was raised a Muslim in India. Sometime during his teenage or young adult years (I don't know the full story as well as I wish I did), he converted to the Baha'i Faith, as well as his younger sister. For that, they were effectively disowned by my grandfather, a very "conservative" Muslim. I got to meet him when I was about 7, very briefly. The only thing I remember about him personally is that he made me feel loved from the instant I first looked at him.

My mother was raised a Presbyterian but became a Baha'i as a teenager. She was interested primarily in religious studies, although she eventually pursued a Ph.D. in history, largely because history departments are better supported in academia than religious studies departments. She was going to go to Iran to research her dissertation, and right as she was set to go, the Iranian Revolution happened, and as an American Baha'i woman, there was no chance she would be safe there. Instead, she went to India and wrote her dissertation on the Zoroastrian diaspora in India. Zoroastrianism was, until the Muslim conquests, the state religion of Iran, and it is really impossible to tell the story of how Zoroastrians came to leave Iran without telling the story of the Muslim invasions that displaced them. Most of her published articles deal with the Baha'i Faith, which again is rather difficult to study without first understanding the Muslim societies from which it originated.

All of this is to say I am quite aware of the brutality that occurs in many Muslim majority countries. I am quite aware that Muslims are capable of being intolerant. But my basic impression, on the whole, of the many Muslims I've interacted with is that they are just people. Sometimes they do ordinary things. Sometimes they do admirable things. Sometimes they do shitty things. History, in my mind, provides no evidence that their morals are defective compared to the rest of the world. To the contrary, they have a history towards tolerance of Jewish and Christian minorities (much more so than the Christian world had towards religious minorities prior to the very recent past). Prior to the 20th century, the Muslim world's record on women's rights was superior to Europe's. I don't mean to downplay the serious depravity and danger posed by ISIS or the state mandated oppression of women in Saudi Arabia. I mean to say that apocalyptic death cults and oppressive dictatorships are hardly an invention of the Muslim world or confined to Muslim countries.

I also want to be clear about what I think about Muslim immigrants in particular. One of the most important things to remember about Muslim immigrants in Europe and America is that these people chose to live in a country where they were a minority because they thought they would have a better life there. These aren't people who are opposed to Western values. These are people who are embracing Western values and abandoning (or, as in the case of Syrian refugees, desperately fleeing) less free societies.

ISIS has had some alarming successes wooing European-born Muslims. So far, they have had very little success with American-born Muslims. A commonly cited explanation is that American Muslims feel much more integrated with their societies than European Muslims do. Personally, I'm proud that America can boast that. But if we persistently send American Muslims the message that they are unwelcome and we find their faith incompatible with American values, I think we will be making a grave mistake, both morally and in terms of the possible consequences.

Who We Are and How We Think

The other day a post from a blogger came up on my feed with a post arguing that there is a huge problem with rape in Sweden by Muslim refugees. The primary basis for this claim was that reported rapes and other sex crimes are higher dramatically today than they were in 2003 (as shown by official government sources). After looking at the data, I pointed out that the increase occurred almost entirely between 2007 and 2010, and therefore couldn't have been caused by refugees from the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011. No one on this comment thread seemed to be persuaded, which didn't surprise me. I engaged in conversation with people who replied to my comment, and despite the fact that absolutely no one there seemed to agree with anything I had to say, the conversation was generally polite and I enjoyed it.

At one point, though, someone said that my beliefs required "ignoring 1400 years of history." I considered not replying.

I happen to think I know an awful lot about the history of Islam, as it is both a casual interest of mine and my mother is a Ph.D. who specializes primarily in South Asian and Middle East history, and primarily focuses on religions in those regions. She has taught me a lot about different world religions. But I also recognized that the other person also felt very confident they had the correct impression of Islamic history, and I seriously doubted there was any hope of convincing this person otherwise. In fact, psychology tells us the opposite happens when two people argue. Instead, the most likely outcome is that both sides reinforce their own beliefs rather than coming closer together.

But reply I did, arguing that during the vast majority of those 1400 years, the Islamic world was more tolerant of other religions and treated women better than the Christian world. I was asked for sources, and at some point mentioned my mother. At which point I was asked this:

What has she published? Is she Muslim? Am I?

Asking what she's published is pretty fair game in my mind if I'm going to appeal to her expertise when I claim I really do know a good bit about Islam and its history. And you know what? I don't know what this stranger I've never met and never spoken to intended when he asked whether I or my mother were Muslim, but I actually think this is an important and totally fair question.

See, our backgrounds inform what we think of as obvious and true. Something very important was glossed over in the sarcastic mockery of the phrase "alternative facts." Sure, I believe there are things that are true and things that are not true. But for all of us, what we think is true and not true is determined nearly entirely because of our life experiences. For instance, I believe wholeheartedly that men have walked on the moon. But what's my basis for that? Sure, I saw some pictures and some grainy film, but by that measure, I've got better evidence that the Avengers saved New York City. Mostly, I believe men walked on the moon because people told me, because it's consistent with everything else I think I know, and because any story where men did not walk on the moon requires me to abandon not one but multiple things I believe about objective facts and reality.

Men walked on the moon. I'm certain it happened. But the fact of it happening did not create my certainty. Being told it happened by people I trust created my certainty.

Right now, there is a vast gulf between what some Americans think is true and is not true. We really are living in different realities. And I really don't have high hopes for our future as country if we don't start to understand each other.  The recent election really didn't cause this problem. Exacerbated it, maybe. But the truth is, the near complete disconnect between such large segments of our population is a crisis that has been with us for a long time, and it has only been getting worse.

So in my next post (which I need a little more time to work on), I'm going to answer that question and talk about my personal relationship with Islam. Because it matters. It matters not just what I believe, but how I came to believe it.

I Am a Republican

Today, I am declaring myself a Republican.

I wasn’t always a Republican. Quite the opposite, in fact. For most of my adult life, I've considered myself an independent but usually voted Democrat, though I’ve cast votes for both parties and for third parties. To be clear, I do not support the present administration. I am on record as having supported Ms. Clinton for the presidency, and today I have a lower opinion of the President than I did on election day.

This administration is an immediate, important concern. But even more frightening to me is how unequipped our government is to deal with this threat. Despite the fact that many Republican lawmakers publicly denounced Mr. Trump, they backed off when pro-Trump protesters showed up at their rallies, and rolled over entirely after his election. You may recall, back in October, congressional Republicans told us they would serve as a check on the President no matter who it was.Now, Speaker Ryan is content to just pretend he didn’t say, only months ago, that attempts to ban immigration on the basis of religion was immoral. Congressional Republicans, by and large, have proven to be cowards.

I certainly don’t mean to absolve the Democratic party of blame for this mess. The Democratic establishment linked arms and pushed everyone aside to nominate Hillary Clinton, even though it was clear she was a dangerously unpopular candidate. And when it was (or should have been) obvious that Mr. Trump was the presumptive Republican nominee, still the Democratic party actively colluded to put the weaker candidate on the ballot. Even before that, I already had acquired a distaste for their tactics. I have yet to see a fundraising email that wasn’t laced with shrill hyperbole about the awful things opposing candidates supposedly believe.

However, these parties are American institutions. You may think (and most Americans do) that it would be better if we had a third party. I have believed that at times myself. But the truth is that Americans cannot agree on what a third party should look like, and until they do, there will be none. In the meantime, let’s call the Republican and Democratic two-party system what it is: the way American government has operated for over 150 years.

Right now all our institutions are under siege. We have lost trust in our leaders, in our media, in our courts, in our scientists, and most importantly in each other. A lot of Americans are, understandably, in the mood to tear everything down. However, the lesson I take from history is that when the institutions that protect a free society are dismantled, more often than not, the new society that rises from the ashes is anything but free.

I believe the Republican Party can and must be reinvigorated with moral integrity. For myself, I believe in free markets. I believe that large, persistent deficits are going to catch up with us if we don’t get smarter about our budgets. I believe (like most mainstream economists) that infrastructure development pays long-term dividends. I believe education is incredibly important but that we have to stop trying to protect an industrial-era vision of school and learning. I believe taxes and regulations work best when they are simple and streamlined.

However, I will not accept having the largest incarcerated population in the world. I will not accept using our ineffective, expensive war on drugs to tear apart families and impose lifetime bans on citizens voting as a result of their conviction. I will not accept congressional districts that are precisely gerrymandered to rob people of meaningful choices. I will not accept burying or obfuscating scientific evidence to win an argument. And I will never, ever accept the premise that Americans with different skin colors and different languages and different religions than myself are entitled to anything less than the same protection under the law I receive.

I want to be clear that it will be extremely difficult to transform a party. Many of the administration's policies remain wildly popular among self-identified Republicans. Defeating the lawmakers that prop him will require massive support from politically exhausted Americans that often don’t vote and independents who have wandered away from the party. It will require luring in moderate Democrats who are disaffected with their current leadership. And most importantly, it will involve contesting primaries from the bottom up. Success will require hundreds of candidates in primaries for state legislatures throughout the country with motivated supporters that can get out the vote.

In the coming months, I will be posting more thoughts, including but not limited to policy suggestions, thoughts on election strategies and election targets, and hopefully making connections with like-minded people. 

For now, though, I leave you with the words of Aziz Ansari: “If you look at our history, change doesn't come from presidents. Change comes from large groups of angry people.” It is time to be angry that common sense, decency, and integrity are being thrown in the dumpster. It is time to stop believing that being a moderate means being docile. It is time to fight, and it is time to stop making excuses and looking away when the best values of America are being assaulted.