From Mustafa Akyol at New York Times:
The scarcity of intellectual freedom under self-described Islamic states has received criticism from many corners, from Islamophobic conservatives to Muslim liberals. In response, the authorities who censor books or ban blogs usually shrug. They typically think that freedom of speech is a Western invention to which they don’t have to subscribe. In Malaysia, the government brazenly condemns “liberalism” and “human rights-ism.”
These censors like to think that by protecting believers from dangerous ideas they are doing a great favor to Muslim societies. They are doing the opposite. Their thought-policing only helps enfeeble and intellectually impoverish Muslims: When Muslim minds aren’t challenged by “dangerous” ideas they cannot develop the sophistication needed to articulate their own.
I first realized this limitation about two decades ago when Richard Dawkins’s books “The Selfish Gene” and “The Blind Watchmaker” were first published here in Turkey. The books presented an aggressively atheist interpretation of evolution. As a faithful Muslim and an aspiring writer, I wanted to write a rebuttal. As I started to do research, I realized that all of the reasoned arguments against Dr. Dawkins and other “new atheists” had been written by Western Christians. Since they lived in open societies where religion could be freely criticized, Western Christians had developed an intellectual tradition of apologetics. In Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and other countries suffering under the yoke of censorship, however, Muslims hadn’t tried to counter the atheists. The government solved that the problem for them — by banning atheist books, if not also punishing atheists. More.
Fat lot of good banning Dawkins will do. That only makes someone that Westerners wish would just shut up into some kind of a hero.
Oh, you don’t believe me? See Dawkins vs. the Flying Horse.
Why is he a threat anywhere, except to his own reputation?
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