Interview with Yasmine Mohammed on Shutting Down Speech, Secular Activism, and Cherished Ideologies (Part Four)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/02/22

Abstract 

Yasmine Mohammed is an Author and the Founder of Free Hearts, Free Minds. She discusses: shutting down speech; secular activism; and cherished ideologies.

Keywords: FHFM, Islam, Ex-Muslim, Yasmine Mohammed.

Interview with Yasmine Mohammed on Religion, Fundamentalist, and Denominations of the Left (Part Four)[1]^,[2]

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

*This interview was conducted in early 2018.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Some of the individuals, it is not a pervasive phenomenon, but it is individuals who typically would be the centrist or center-right. They cannot be in a platform, for instance.

They are given a platform that is revoked, or they shut it down. There is at least a modicum of truth there that is not being allowed to be said. That someone is succeeding in winning in not being said.

Yasmine Mohammed: Because the narrative is being disrupted, the narrative is minorities are beautiful. People that need to be protected. That is it. If you say anything other than that, you are a racist bigot and Islamophobic, Nazi, blah blah blah.

Jacobsen: Even the value, it is a good value: tolerance and protection of the vulnerable.

Mohammed: It is. This is what I am saying. If liberals understood what they were doing, they would not be doing it. The problem is they do not understand what they are doing. They do not realize that they are supporting.

They think they are supporting a minority and an oppressed group, but they are not. They are supporting the oppressors. When you support the conservatives, the powerful rich theocracies, when you support Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood; they are not being oppressed.

It is the women and the LGBT community, the atheists, and all of these people that are under those people that are being oppressed. It is ridiculous.

Jacobsen: It is also an image thing. We allow it as a culture, not a single person, but as a general phenomenon, so we were talking about fifteen, twenty minutes ago, about the Muslim Brotherhood.

You were saying their century-long plan. They are checking off most of their boxes. Their ‘centennial imperial strategy’ that then becomes a message. Their success sends with us sends a message to them. That we are sufficiently indifferent. That we are going to do your dirty work for you.

Mohammed: It is working beautifully. Another one of their plans. I watched it happen. So, it is an old strategy, divide and conquer. So, old, it has been done. You will think that we would see it a mile away.

When the Black Lives Matter thing happens, I was thinking, “No, there it is. The next line in the strategy. The divide and conquer here it is, it is happening.” But it did not take, everybody was thinking, “My God, civil war is going to happen, black versus white.”

It did not happen, but what ended up happening instead is the Right vs. Left. That is working like a charm. So, if you look back at the media that was pushing things, remember those little videos all the time the AG+ and Vice and Vox and whatever pushing all of the white guilt, pushing all of the Black Lives Matter stuff too, those media like AG+.

What is that? It is Al Jazeera who is funding all of this propaganda that is going through to the millennials and tugging at their heartstrings playing exactly they said they would. What do you have in Germany? People holding up signs, “Refugees welcome.”

Little kids with sandwiches and bottles of water being given to the refugees as they are walking in. They are using the good nature of these people against themselves they are using the white guilt. They are using the guilt of the Germans, especially, because they have a lot of guilt.

Germany was so easy to take over because German people they want too self-flagellate. They want to somehow repent from their past sins, so this is how they help to achieve it. So, they understand all of this.

They know all of this. They get how Western minds work. They understand history. They understand and it is a joke. It is a joke. it is so easy. Taking over Egypt, that is hard. That was their first job. They succeeded because Egyptians are hardcore.

Arabs, in general, they are not in the West. There is no grey area. This is about Arab people. They are black or white. You are in or out: yes-no. If they are going to be a Muslim, they are going to be a hardcore Muslim.

They are going to fly a plane into a building, no problem. That is the way they are so it was difficult to change those minds because they are not open-minded, grey area, wishy-washy people, but they succeeded with the more difficult task.

The West, the mindset of the Liberal values, Enlightenment values, Western values, this idea of equality and all of that stuff. That is easy. There is a thing that they say where they laugh at Jesus because it is mostly a Christian mindset over here.

They laugh. They say things, “Turn the other cheek, so I can chop off your head.” Muslims think of this as Western people. This is all a weakness. The fact that everybody is so good. Help your neighbor, all of this hippy Christian stuff – that is hilarious to them. They are like, “You guys are no problem…”

We are proving them right. Especially if you look at Canada, how we bend over? Someone wants a Bible study in a classroom. We say, “Absolutely not, get the Lord’s Prayer out.” But I want to have a Friday worship and have a congregation: “No problem, of course, absolutely: here is an empty classroom you can use. Oh no worries, nobody is going to keep an eye on what you are saying or what you are doing.”

When I start to think about it, it is quite depressing. It makes me feel I want to move to South America.

Jacobsen: The first case is removing a religious murmuring, statement, or prayer from a public setting. People paying public tax money for that are right. Many of them will probably be non-Catholic, at least, so that is a secular thing.

That is the appropriate thing to do within our values.

Mohammed: Yes, it is.

Jacobsen: But then to allow the others are against that value. It is not that it makes me uncomfortable. It is a violation of a standard, not a norm, but of a standard that is set, that is derivative from the values that we hold.

Mohammed: We need to be unapologetic about our values. We have come to this doubt of progress, not easily. We had to fight for it. People have lost their lives for it. People have suffered for us to enjoy this. Why are we allowing the past to come back and haunt us again?

Jacobsen: Also, religion is young. There is tribal get together. Those are super old, but some religions are four thousand or six thousand years old, tops. This is especially important for things that are new: women’s rights and human rights.

They have barely existed in robust present form for a century or two. This is a particular risk we have been emphasizing. We have had two millennia to fourteen hundred years. How have they been for women? Maybe, a mild argument can be that for the time they were some progressive things, maybe, but not for now.

Mohammed: 6th century.

Jacobsen: Right but now my feeling based on rough knowledge on things is that women’s rights are new and, therefore, fragile, the intervention of this worldview is destabilizing to them.

Mohammed: Totally, and what you are saying is so true, that is what makes me nervous because they are so much hardened and experiences and set. They are in a better position than we are. Christianity in the West anyway. It is being castrated. It is not going to, but Islam is not.

Islam is young and verdant, strong and successful, and rich and powerful, politically and economically. It is a real threat and, as you said, our values are fragile and new compared to their values. However, we are always being killed. We never had power, still do not have power.

In only in the past five years, I have been comfortable saying publicly, “I am an atheist.” I have only been comfortable in using that word after even five years. That estimate is probably being generous.

So, for years, I said I was Agnostic or I said, “I am not religious.” You begin to use euphemisms because you do not want people to think that you are some evil hellion that is going to eat their baby. That is Canada, so imagine areas conservative the U.S. or the Muslim world.

Obviously, how much worse it is for an atheist over there, Atheism is considered terrorism in Saudi Arabia now. That is what it is deemed.

2. Jacobsen: So, if we take a conclusive look at the extensive discussion we had over the last few hours, and if we look at the situation, not through the lens of religion, and religion’s contents and countries, what do you see as the future of secularism and religious activism in general?

Mohammed: So, secularism or irreligious people, you were saying. We are scattered all over the place. We are not supporting each other. We haven’t felt the need to glom on to each other. Somehow, we need to form a political party.

But in the same way that religious people have a central authority: let’s say that Catholics, they have the Pope in the Vatican City. Muslims they have Saudi Arabia. They got Mecca, Medina. We are important. We are relevant.

We are a significant number, what we have to say is valuable and important. This is the first time in history that we can say it publicly, in some areas of the world. We can say it publicly and not be beheaded for it.

It is not blasphemy. It is okay. We can finally have a show of strength and if we are able to do that, if we are able to somehow get together and be something, then we will be able to support all of the secular liberal people in the rest of the world, in the areas of the world where they cannot speak up lest they are killed.

So, at least, they will know that there is some central authority that is willing to help them in some way or to support them in some way or at least to know that we exist and that we can be the change we want to see in the world.

We are complaining that liberals have betrayed us because they are not supporting the liberals in these minority groups, in the Muslim world. We can be that instead. We are saying that liberals are treating Christianity in a sum, differently.

They are, atheists can come forward and say, “Fuck all of your religions, we are not going to treat you any differently. We have CFI. We have the American Atheist Association.” We have this, but it is not good enough.

We need something big and strong and loud and united. I do not know how that is going to happen, but that is what we need.

Jacobsen: We need a Judean People’s Front.

Mohammed: I do not even want to say a political party because it is not a specific country. We are humanist.

Jacobsen: It is long term thinking than political thinking is.

Mohammed: It is long term thinking than political thinking, absolutely. So, what is it going to take? Do we need to – somebody was saying we should – all move to Greenland?

Jacobsen: Iceland is number one.

Mohammed: So, maybe, Iceland can be our new Mecca for humanists or something like that.

Jacobsen: Tops the ranking, it has for years for equality for men and women. A study came out saying that 100% of people under 25 said that they do not believe that the world was created by Creator or divine architect.

Mohammed: So, maybe, that is what we need. Maybe, we need Iceland too, but that is what we need in the short term. What we need to do is we need to support people who have our ideas, we should support people based on their ideas, not their identity. That is what we need.

That is the short term solution. It boggles the mind how many liberals will jump down the throat of anybody that says anything about Christianity, but if somebody says something about Islam it is defended. That is the problem, that is what needs to stop.

We need to stop. We need to be able to differentiate between Islam and Muslims as liberals. We should be supporting minorities. Yes, we should be supporting oppressed people. Yes, people are human being’s and not religions.

That, maybe, the problem is that they think Islam is a culture. They think Muslims are a people. Muslims are not people. There are hundreds of countries. It is saying Catholics are a people. There are Italian Catholics. There are Filipino Catholics. There are Mexican Catholics.

They are all over the world, different Catholics. They do not speak the same language. They do not eat the same food. They do not have the same conditions. They are not the same people. They are different ethnic groups. They are different cultures. They share a religion.

Islam is the same thing. If you are going to support Mexicans or you are going to support Italians or you are going to support Filipinos, then that is fine, wonderful, dandy, do that, but do not support Catholicism.

They do not understand the parallels are perfectly clear. It is there, but maybe it is because the issue is that I am born and raised in this stuff. I was born and raised in Canada, but in a Muslim household of Arab culture.

3. Jacobsen: But you also hear the Platonic argument too. Whenever something bad happens within a person’s cherished ideology or worldview plus practice, or suggested practice, they go, “That is not the real [fill in the blank].”

It is Platonic. I do not care about that. How are the people that believe that stuff in general acting? Most are acting decently. However, what is going on?

Mohammed: Communists can say the same thing, right? How many millions of people have to die before you say, “Maybe, this ideology is not so great”?

Jacobsen: Also, some preachers do it to put all burden of responsibility of belief on the follower, which is a beautiful way of doing it, where “You are not praying sincerely enough” or “You do not have the best belief in the faith and so on…”

Mohammed: So, because I was born in a Western world but in a Muslim household, I am able to see the distinction so clearly, but somebody who is American or Canadian and has had no interaction or understanding about the Muslim world or about Islam, or about Muslims.

It is all so foreign. It is also intricate and confusing. So, you can understand how they confuse the religion with the culture, with the people. All of that. They do not get that there are Pakistani Muslims and Egyptian Muslims, Indonesian Muslims. Maybe, they need to understand the difference between people and religion.

4. Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Yasmine.

Mohammed: No problem, Scott.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Author; Founder, Free Hearts, Free Minds.

[2] Individual Publication Date: February 22, 2019: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/mohammed-four; Full Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2019: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

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