Some liberals seem to become annoyed whenever an actress adopts the Hijab or a Muslim becomes adherent to his or her faith. The behavior of such liberals is contrary to the principles of freedom of religion and belief and human rights, the very principles that the world calls for all to adopt. It appears that some liberals in the Arab world may perhaps be going to extremes in understanding liberalism, an understanding that misrepresents the true meaning of the idea.
Liberalism is known for its forgiveness, acceptance of others and opposition to the denial of people’s right to choice. It is such a shame that Arab liberalism has been transformed to represent groups of tense people who adopt revenge and hatred as their motto. In fact, some people have changed the very meaning of Arab liberalism by pushing it away from its original moderate nature to becoming something that is extreme — a sort of extremism that deprives anti-liberals their rights to have diverse viewpoints and adopt what they consider appropriate.
I wrote the introduction of this article thinking about the Egyptian actress Hanan Turk who has been heavily criticized for wearing the Hijab. Hanan has already been condemned and described using derogatory terms. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if she were soon to be described as a terrorist.
The problem with some Arab liberals is that they forget that they live within conservative communities that believe that as a Muslim you cannot simultaneously be committed to your religion and also be liberal.
Some Arab Muslim liberals try to imitate Western liberals who totally abandon the Church. Western liberalism has caused many people to become atheists who don’t believe in God and consider the church to be the first enemy of liberalism. Such people feel that their revolution is in fact against the extremism of the Church that abolished independent thinking and not against the concept of having ideas and thoughts. Therefore, Western liberals understand other people’s beliefs and don’t become their enemies on account of religion and values.
It is true that such people campaign individually, institutionally and nationally to defend human rights and other issues in confronting authoritarian governments that impose totalitarian ideas on their people. When Muslims pray, fast and adopt the Hijab out of free will, liberals will defend such people’s right to do what they wish. This is surely what prompted many French liberals to protest the unfortunate law banning the Hijab.
At various points in their lives Muslims feel the need to strengthen their relationship with God. Is there a problem in doing so? The liberals should actually welcome them and treat them gently. Feelings of guilt and regret over past mistakes should not be allowed to overtake emotions and ultimately push such people toward extremism.
If Arab liberals wish to imitate non-Muslim liberals, whose philosophy relies on hating the Church and Christianity because of the suffering they have caused in the past, then they are committing a huge mistake and are really inviting people to abandon the very essence of Islam and that is a dangerous and slippery path — a path that would create many obstacles, infuriate forgiving communities and be considered to be a declaration of war on religion.
Our Arab communities need enlightening ideas because development and positive transformation in life are really the only ways to success. Rebelling against religion in the name of development and reform would only lead to unfavorable extremism and no one could predict the results of such a conflict.
Let us leave Hanan Turk to wear her Hijab and give her and others the freedom to express their viewpoints freely. Nobody is saying that we cannot disagree but fundamentally if you do wish to then do so rationally and provide evidence to construct a valid argument. Simultaneously we shouldn’t accuse people of being non-believers and attack them when we don’t possess even a shred of evidence against them apart from their opposition of the status quo — which itself could be wrong.
