must. offend. religion.

I certainly do agree with the general summation of this writing: we must antagonize religion MORE, not less. For far too long we have bowed down to the nonsense, and that only emboldens the zealots and loony believers.

We must offend religion more: Islam, Christianity and our tolerance for ancient myths, harmful ideas

Our enduring deference to religion, despite its toxicity and phony explanations for the cosmos, lets it survive 

JEFFREY TAYLER

“Yes, it is freedom of speech, but,” said Inna Shevchenko, the 24-year-old leader of the topless, fiercely atheist activist group Femen in France.  On Feb. 14 she was addressing the conference on art, blasphemy and freedom of expression held at the Krudttønden, a café and cultural center in Copenhagen.  She continued.  “Why do we still say ‘but’ when we…”

A sustained barrage of automatic gunfire interrupted her.  She, the Swedish cartoonist with her onstage, Lars Vilks (famous for his 2007 drawings of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked deadly riots in the Islamic world), and much of the audience hurled themselves to the floor before escaping through the building’s rear exit.  The hooded terrorist assailant, a 22-year-old Danish citizen of Arab descent, ended up killing a Danish filmmaker, Finn Noergaard, and wounding five others.  Police later felled the assassin after he had opened fire on a synagogue, murdering one.

The attacker’s primary target was probably Vilks, but he would have rejoiced at the chance to get Shevchenko, too.  After all, Femen has pronounced religion – in particular, Islam — a bane on women’s rights and has carried out a number of widely publicized, bare-breasted protests against it, burning the Salafist flag in front of the Great Mosque in Paris and chanting, “Fuck Your Morals!” and “Women’s Spring is Coming!” to a furious crowd outside Tunisia’s Ministry of Justice, disrupting a Catholic march against same-sex marriage (also in Paris) and disturbing the pope’s weekly address at the Vatican, and ambushing the Russian Orthodox patriarch as he stepped out of his plane in Kiev, greeting the potentate with cries (in Russian) of “Out, out, Devil!”  (By no means is this list complete.)  Shevchenko herself was forced into exile in 2012 after chainsawing, in support of Pussy Riot activists imprisoned in Russia, a giant wooden cross on Kiev’s central Independence Square.

The morning after the Copenhagen assault I spoke with Shevchenko by Skype.  Still in the Danish capital, she had spent much of the night at the police station, and had slept poorly after returning to her hotel.  Yet she was calm and lucid, determined to continue with Femen’s fight against religion.  This fight had turned extremely personal for her even before Copenhagen: She lost 12 friends in the Charlie Hebdo massacre last month in Paris, where she lives as a political refugee.  (Femen had figured prominently on the satirical magazine’s pages and had even guest-edited an issue.)  Had the Krudttønden organizers held the conference in the café’s front room (with its large windows), and not in the walled-off rear auditorium, she told me, she might not be alive today.

“What were you going to say just before the shooting began?”

“I was going to say that we can’t begin self-censoring, or we end up with just the illusion of free speech.  If we have free speech only up to where we might hurt someone’s feelings, then it isn’t free.  ‘You have freedom of speech, just don’t offend,’ people tell me.  Those who say this are only trying to shut down our freedoms.  If we cede to this, we play their game.  Now that offends me.”

In the month between the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the attack in Copenhagen, I both read and heard a number of arguments that in essence blame the artists for their own deaths.  Most, in fact, start with “I believe in freedom of speech, but  . . .”

Here is a brief summary of what follows the telltale cop-out but:

“It makes no sense to offend people needlessly.  Muslims find depiction of the Prophet Muhammad offensive.  Best just to avoid publishing such cartoons.”

“Europeans have to realize they have large Muslim communities in their midst.  Europeans need to adapt to them, for the sake of social harmony.  Best just to avoid publishing such cartoons.”

“Westerners are increasingly secular and have forgotten how important religion is in much of the world.  In particular, religion is an extremely sensitive subject for the Muslim immigrant community in Europe.  Best not to publish such cartoons.”

“Did you actually see those cartoons?  They really were offensive.  It would have been better not to publish them.”

Let’s dispense straightaway with the juvenile argument of “offense” (to religious sentiment) as grounds for declining to publish or say anything.  No Western constitution or legal code guarantees citizens the right to go about life free from offense.  Laws provide for freedom of expression (with some restrictions, especially regarding state security, hate crime and incitement to violence), but they cannot forbid potentially offensive expression without destroying the very right they are meant to protect.  (French law forbids denying the Holocaust, which does create contradictions and harm free speech, but that is another matter.)

snip

Like it or not, we are engaged in a struggle for the soul of our Enlightenment civilization.  Shevchenko said as much.

“First it was a war of ideas,” she told me.  “Now it’s an actual war, with people losing their lives for these ideas.  There is no longer such a thing as a ‘safe Europe.’”

To continue accepting quisling pseudo-justifications for — or sophistic, à la Reza Aslan, misdiagnoses of — the role of Islam in motivating terrorism throughout the world presages one thing: We will lose.

Shevchenko went on to tell me of the security precautions she would now have to take in what she understatedly called her “new conditions for activism.”  I fear for her: Her face is one of the most recognizable in France, both on account of her Femen protests, and because in 2013 an artist chose her as the inspiration for the face of Marianne (the legendary topless heroine of the French Revolution) that graces France’s postage stamps.  She has always received death threats, but now, she said, they are growing in number, mostly Islam-related, and delivered with credible calm.

“At any movement someone could hit me with a hail of bullets,” she told me.  But she was not cowed.  “We cannot allow fear to govern our ideas or take over our feelings.  I worry people will stop attending things like this blasphemy conference, saying ‘I’d like to go but I’m afraid to.’  That will makes those who go targets because they are so few.  In fact, Femen, Charlie Hebdo and Lars are targets because we’re so few.”  She proposed the only surefire solution: that “everyone publish [the controversial cartoons].”  The plethora of targets would stymie the terrorists, and, by showing resolve, prove the futility of attacks.

“Now,” she added, “it’s us or them.  I want us to win.”

So do I.  And if you’re honest with yourself, so do you.

In this war, the best weapon, by far, is the truth.  Now more than ever, telling the truth counts.  So please, do it.

Jeffrey Tayler is a contributing editor at The Atlantic. His seventh book, "Topless Jihadis -- Inside Femen, the World's Most Provocative Activist Group," is out now as an Atlantic ebook. Follow @JeffreyTayler1 on Twitter.

Original.  (It's as good as the snipped parts)