# The Fallen Blogger and the Spectre of Secularism **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 28, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827 "2015-02-28T03:21:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 43
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/841 "2015-05-14T14:06:27Z")
> [@A\_isha](#): > > “I hate Muslims” Or possibly “I’m a big Danny Trejo fan.” ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/842 "2015-05-14T14:33:02Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Or possibly “I’m a big Danny Trejo fan.” **Stringbean** don’t text. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/843 "2015-05-14T22:30:25Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Could someone put this in English? Google Translate just returns gibberish. If you can decipher this: > [@Ramira](#): > > Of you can be with the empty headed bigots who lie and who lay the ground works for the ethnic cleansing, the suppression and eventually the genocides against minorities. > > It is obvious where the OP tends, one can see from the strategic silences. Then you should have no problem. Odd you find _my_ words cryptic. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/844 "2015-05-14T23:01:43Z")
[Houellebecq play pulled in Croatia over ‘security risk’](http://www.france24.com/en/20150514-houellebecq-play-pulled-croatia-over-security-risk) > [@](#): > > A play by best-selling French author Michel Houellebecq – whose book imagining France under Islamic rule stirred controversy – has been pulled from a Croatian arts festival due to security fears, organisers said Thursday. > > But a statement from the organisers said the play had been cancelled “after the interior ministry assessed that its playing would present a security risk”. > > The assessment was made following a request by Dubrovnik authorities, who had concerns because Houellebecq “allegedly has a negative view towards Islam and makes negative statements towards Islamic believers,” festival chief Ivana Medo Bogdanovic said. > > The Dubrovnik county head Nikola Dobroslavic said he sought a security assessment because “we were warned that he (Houellebecq) was controversial and was making insulting comments about Islam”. > > “We did not want to accept or finance a programme that might offend our fellow-citizens,” he was quoted as saying by the state-run HINA news agency. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/845 "2015-05-14T23:54:44Z")
[A protest calling for the protection of freedom of expression in Bangladesh and demanding justice for murdered secular bloggers](https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/nationalsecularsociety/sets/72157652747756306/) ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2015, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/846 "2015-05-15T00:11:46Z")
So I was walking past this bridge one day, in a large well armed party of course, and we looked down and saw a gathering of trolls slowly raising a cairn. A couple of smaller trolls were clinging to what i can only assume was their mother. They were, well not weeping, but doing a sort of grating keening. “Mother, Mother,” they cried “Where’s Grandpa? We want to see Grandpa!” “I’m sorry, little pebbles, but Grandpa is gone. But don’t cry, he’s gone to a better place, and we will all join him soon.” “Where has he gone mama? where?” “Why to the SDMB, of course, my silly little stones. And someday we will all see him there. Why it’s a wonderful place, where the moderators are blind and the dupes will feed you and feed you until you turn to perfect spheres, as you have read about in all the prophecies of troll heaven.” “Hoooray!” I have to admit I felt compassion for these noxious brutes and silently observed their cheer from a great height. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/847 "2015-05-16T22:53:52Z")
[“The picture is very clear. The government is on their side”](http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-05-13/another-blogger-third-year-hacked-death-bangladesh) > [@](#): > > A few years ago, Islamic hardliners asked for a law to be passed to stop these bloggers from writing. > > “They made a hit list of secularist and atheist bloggers," Mohiuddin says. "There are 84 bloggers on that list. All of them are under attack. Now nine of them are dead and many of them were attacked.” > > According to Mohuiddin, the attackers are members of a hardline Islamist group with connections to al-Qaeda in Yemen. > > “They are targeting people who are free thinkers, who are secularists, who are against Islamist fundamentalism," he says. > > As for the Bangladeshi government, Mohiuddin says it’s not doing much to protect bloggers. In some cases, it even arrests and harasses them. Mohuiddin was arrested by the government for his writings and spent more than three months in jail. > > “The picture is very clear. The government is on their side,” he says. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2015, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/848 "2015-05-16T23:36:35Z")
Piffle. Why a would a de-thumbed woman who witnessed her husband brutally hacked to death be more credible than the bigot-shriekers on SDMB? ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/849 "2015-05-17T11:32:45Z")
[Losing their religion: the hidden crisis of faith among Britain’s young Muslims](http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/may/17/losing-their-religion-british-ex-muslims-non-believers-hidden-crisis-faith) > [@](#): > > Why should such an understated figure, someone who describes himself as a “nobody”, speak as if he’s in a witness protection programme? The answer is that six years ago he decided to declare that he no longer accepted the fundamental tenets of Islam. He stopped being a believing Muslim and became instead an apostate. It sounds quaintly anachronistic, but it’s not a term to be lightly adopted. > > Last week the hacking to death in Bangladesh of the blogger Ananta Bijoy Das was a brutal reminder of the risks atheists face in some Muslim-majority countries. And in an era in which British Islamic extremists travel thousands of miles to kill those they deem unbelievers, an apostate’s concern for his or her security at home is perhaps understandable. > [@](#): > > “I’ll give you a couple of examples,” she says. “The other day I ordered some food online – pork buns – and afterwards a guy called me up from the company and he said ‘Nasreen, do you know it’s not halal?’ I said yes, I’m not a Muslim, but afterwards I wish I’d said ‘Who are you to police what I’m eating? How dare you call me up to remind me.’ But that’s how people think: you’re a Muslim, you’ve got a Muslim name.” > > She took a degree in anthropology at the University of London. “And I started to do my dissertation on ex-Muslim identity. My supervisor was this Muslim guy and he told me that it was rubbish, there’s no academic purpose to it.” > > She had to complain to get another supervisor, who was very supportive, and, undaunted, continued with the research. “I succeeded in completing an original piece of empirical research on the ex-Muslim reality,” she says. “I even went on to achieve a special award for this very dissertation. I felt quite vindicated by that.” > > Nevertheless, she detects a strong reluctance at universities to confront the concerted efforts by Islamist groups to lay claim to Muslim students. Not only are Islamic societies often run by extremists, with groups like the Islamic Education and Research Academy seeking to impose gender segregation, but the terms of academic discourse tend to endorse their brand of grievance politics. > > “Go to your average sociology class,” says Nasreen, “and it’s very much about making Muslims victims of Islamophobia – a terminology I disagree with. It’s anti-Muslim bigotry. I dislike Islam – that’s OK, it’s an ideology, but I don’t dislike Muslims. They are two different things.” > > She believes there needs to be secular spaces within Muslim communities. “Women within minority communities suffer massively because their only recourse is to go to some religious person, whether for counselling or any issue.” ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/850 "2015-05-17T11:43:23Z")
So the mentally ill obsessive bigots continue. > [@Stringbean](#): > > Piffle. > > Why a would a de-thumbed woman who witnessed her husband brutally hacked to death be more credible than the bigot-shriekers on SDMB? More credible what the poster called shriekbean? It is sure she is quite upset by the weak competence of the corrupt and badly paid Bangladeshi police and with good reason. But the idea that the hard socialist and hard secularist Awami league government is promoting the Islamist party and the islamist militias, when it is has just convicted one of the islamist leader to death for treason and when these islamist militias are the armed allies of the sworn enemies of the Awami league (the BNP) which the league is locked in combat with… no that is not literally credible. She is with reason lashing out at the gross incompetence that infects the Bangladesh government but a literal alliance, no… But we know already neither of you two lying troll bigots care for any rational analysis or facts at all. You are of course both lying scum. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/851 "2015-05-17T18:00:56Z")
[Removing my hijab](https://aliyahsaleem.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/removing-my-hijab/) > [@](#): > > I speak to women all the time about their experiences with hijab. Girls as young as sixteen feel like they have worn it for an age because it was put on them as children. I see young girls aged 7 or 8 wearing it and I feel a deep sadness for them. Parents should know better: do not put it on your daughters. If they ever want to wear it, then that will be their choice. It is not for you to push it on to them because it is you they will have to fight in the end if they want to remove it. My only advice to girls and women who are wearing it is ask yourself if you want to wear it. If you do then there is nothing else for us to really to talk about in regards to it. For those of you who feel suffocated, and pressured to wear it I hope that my story will help you start the fight. > > You may have to fight your own parents, your husbands and your friends but it is a fight worth having. There is nothing that we are born owning except our bodies. Don’t let any man, woman or teacher tell you that if you do not wear it you are sinful. It took me over nine years to take it off because I felt that I had no choice in the matter and in some ways I did not. I understand that many Muslim women wear it out of choice, but their positive experiences do not negate the negative experiences of women shamed and pressurized into it. I hope that more women are able to come out with their stories so that those among us who are suffering with shame and guilt can see that there is a way out. At times I felt completely powerless, and burdened by the hijab. It became the shackle which held me back for so many years, and I resented it deeply. Now the thin scarf which was once a source of shame is nothing more than lifeless material. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/852 "2015-05-17T23:36:09Z")
[Neil LaBute’s Anti-Censorship Play Is Censored, With Chilling ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Echoes](http://deadline.com/2015/05/neil-labute-anti-censorship-play-censored-1201428233/) > [@](#): > > A June showcase of four short plays addressing the critical and growing incursion of censorship into arts and culture has been cancelled by the presenting venue, Greenwich Village’s Sheen Center for Thought and Culture. The event was to have opened “Planet Connections Theater Festivity” and was a benefit for the National Coalition Against Censorship. The key issue was Mohammed Gets A Boner, a monologue that Neil LaBute contributed to the quartet of plays, called “Playwrights For A Cause.” ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2015, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/853 "2015-05-17T23:53:05Z")
> [@truthSeeker2](#): > > My point is that Islam is a cancer. When someone (rightly) abuses it, people should not feel the need to defend it . … How does one abuse a fucking cancer? I like how all the phony WWJD christians in this country band together to preach forgiveness for people who do wrong in the world. Wait…that dosen’t happen? WWJD? Nevermind, it makes for a catchy bumper sticker, if not such an actual life practice. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/854 "2015-05-18T08:50:00Z")
Y’know, if I wanted links to random news articles containing the word “Muslim” I’d just set up an automatic feed. There’s really no need for **Haberdash** to personally provide one. That’s what bots are for. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/855 "2015-05-18T10:24:29Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Y’know, if I wanted links to random news articles containing the word “Muslim” I’d just set up an automatic feed. There’s really no need for **Haberdash** to personally provide one. That’s what bots are for. What makes you think that **Haberdash** is not a bot? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/856 "2015-05-18T10:47:15Z")
Bots are more coherent. ---
**Author:** ![Haberdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Haberdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haberdash)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/857 "2015-05-18T12:18:00Z")
[Indonesian surgeon-general says torn hymen shouldn’t stop women join military](http://www.smh.com.au/world/indonesian-surgeongeneral-says-torn-hymen-shouldnt-stop-women-join-military-20150518-gh4844.html) > [@](#): > > Female military applicants in Indonesia are subjected to virginity tests - including the unscientific “two-finger test” to determine if the hymen is intact - before they are accepted into the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI). > [@](#): > > But TNI commander General Moeldoko told reporters virginity was the gauge of a woman’s morality. > > This was something a woman must have to serve in the armed forces, along with physical strength and academic aptitude. > > The virginity test was a “measure of morality. There’s no other way”, General Moeldoko was reported saying in the Jakarta Globe. > > “So what’s the problem. It is a good thing, so why criticise it?” ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/858 "2015-05-18T14:02:47Z")
[Biker gang shootout kills 9 outside Waco, Texas, restaurant; nearly 200 arrested](http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/18/us/texas-biker-gang-brawl-shooting/) [Quote=CNN] Rival biker gangs unleashed a hailstorm of bullets outside a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas, leaving nine people dead and at least 17 hospitalized. “In my nearly 35 years of law enforcement experience, this is the most violent and gruesome scene that I have dealt with,” Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said. [/Quote] Says a cop from Waco, who presumably remembers another little fracas there, involving a group that called themselves Branch Davidians, a while back. Anyway, say what you will about muslims, I’m pretty sure they’re fairly unlikely to get into massive shootouts with each other outside titty bars. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/859 "2015-05-18T14:17:59Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Bots are more coherent. I think the most glaring issue is with message. He can’t decide if he’s trying to say “Islam is awful,” “Muslims are awful,” or just “brown people are awful.” ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827/860 "2015-05-18T14:21:27Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Anyway, say what you will about muslims, I’m pretty sure they’re fairly unlikely to get into massive shootouts with each other outside titty bars. Point of order! Twin Peaks is _not_ a titty bar! It’s a family-friendly chain of sports bars and restaurants whose servers all just _happen_ to be young hot women showing tons of flesh! Also, the shootout started _inside_ the titty bar. 😃 . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827.md?page=42) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-fallen-blogger-and-the-spectre-of-secularism/713827.md?page=44)