An Open Letter to Mariam Sobh, on Ex-Muslims
I respectfully request that you rethink and address your video about ex-Muslims. Please read why
Mariam,
You haven't met me before, I don’t believe. I promise you that I’m rather non-hostile (and usually pleasant) for the majority of people I interact with in person. I hope you don’t take a defensive or combative stance in response to the title of this article. I wouldn't have written it if I didn’t think I had good and honest reason to do so. Please don’t take it personally, and I mean the best for everyone in this equation.
The following Open Letter is posted below, and it is in response to your recent video, titled Muslims Making Money, that asserted that ex-Muslims who speak publicly about their lived experiences are dishonest and mainly in it for the easy money.
To give a sense of where I’m coming from on this, allow me to preface with the disclaimer that I’m not a Muslim nor an ex-Muslim. I personally know many ex-Muslims, immerse in several languages (Arabic, Dari, Pashto, Urdu) and areas of the Islamic world, collaborate with dissident and democratic movements and projects, helped bring together a (minimally successful, but heartfelt) project to raise awareness and money to go support Yazidi and combat sex slavery during the Sinjar crisis, and served in two warzones with Muslims and religious minorities. Some of my secular friends from around the Islamic world brought your video to my attention while I was on Twitter.
In short, I had to respond.
I write this with all respect and sincerity, and I doubt you meant or intended to dismiss the genuine concerns of honest ex-Muslims. I also want to preface this by saying that it’s OK to single out the specific things or arguments or actions within the wider ex-Muslim community that you disagree with, as long as this distinction is made ahead of time.
That said, many of my friends from around Islamic parts of the world have found your video to be a cruel, cold and sweeping dismissal of legitimate efforts by ex-Muslims to gain a basic foothold in modern free society.
There is also a way that I think you could address (or amend your video, only if you so choose) the video, improve the clarity and specificity of your message (however many folks may disagree with it), and at least tackle much of this problem. My intention is not to demonize or judge you as a person, but to ask for a simple re-think of this video. A disclaimer at the beginning may help, and my short “letter” below seeks to help explain. Don’t take it as an attack on you. Please read, with consideration.
An Open Letter to Mariam, on Ex-Muslims
Dear Mariam,
I personally know many exMuslims.
Of these, many give talks. Many of them make the decision, often with some hesitation due to the onslaught they know awaits them, to speak publicly and write about their journey.
Ex-Muslims deserve the same platform to tell their stories and let their voices be heard as any other minority group. They deserve to have the chance to defy a cold-hearted status quo that hasn’t given a flying shit about them for decades, if not centuries. They should not be consigned to sitting in the back of the bus any longer. They deserve to drink from the same fountains of freedom, speech and debate as Muslims and secular Westerners do. Their women deserve the same ability to speak from the heart and rebel with courageous honesty as Western feminists do.
Ex-Muslim women should be allowed a place of public recognition at the Women’s March, just as Muslim women are. We have to tear down this wall of moral segregation, once and for all.
Certainly there are people in any domain of social activism who act primarily out of self-interest and dishonest motives. I don’t know the inner motives of every person who takes the stage as an ex-Muslim, nor do I claim to. However, I am fairly confident that I can get straight to the heart of things, and help straighten out some misconceptions. You seem to claim in the video that the default assumption that we should have for ex-Muslims going public with their testimonies, stories and views is that they are dishonest and chasing easy cash. You also seem to imply (I will admit mistake and amend my words if I’m wrong) that most public and vocal ex-Muslims on campus tours or publishing tracks are driven by these prime motives. This is a terribly inaccurate and crude perspective.
Here’s a more accurate, common and likely picture of the ones who go public in this manner.
Ex-Muslims know that when they become visible and vocal, it comes with a cost. A cost of security, of privacy, of ridicule and dismissal, of suspicion, of further social separation from much of the wider Muslim community, and of attack from all sides.
Most of the ones I know get attacked by “liberals” or Leftists merely for the act of speaking their minds and describing their experiences living in Islamic societies. The Left either ignores or outright doesn’t care about their voices. Some are even hostile to its mere existence. The Right fears and attacks them with hate and bigotry as “closet jihadis”. And a good many conservative Muslims treat them like dogshit. They get hate mail and even death threats, sometimes on a regular basis.
If you don’t believe me, I respectfully invite you to meet more of them. Or even to attend an ex-Muslim or Muslimish event. I wish you were with us two weeks ago, at such an event here in NYC. Many of the speakers would have brought you to tears, or applause, or at least inspired you. Most of these people are trying to convince a dismissive world to finally give them a platform.
We should not laugh off and trample on the minorities within the minority, struggling merely to be acknowledged. It’s OK to satirize or criticize aspects of the ex-Muslim community you disagree with, but please show the kind of nuance and respect you would want society to show you, and other Muslims.
If social justice and Intersectionality have any hope of being remotely consistent, this is the place to start.
I can tell you, as someone who is quite familiar with ‘formers’ from various walks of life, that it is usually not an easy track. It’s far from being ‘quick, easy cash’ or an overnight entry into a prestige club. And most are not making good money from this path. If ex-Muslims and their respective organizations around the country and oversees had even a fraction of the funding and support that groups like CAIR receive, it would be amazing. Many more people around the world would be less isolated and more secure as human beings.
Here is the reality of many if not most of the ex-Muslims I know.
Many risked their lives. Most aren’t rolling in money, and most do get attacked from all sides, even for merely trying to tell their story. It is a cruel, cold dismissal of their lived experiences and struggles as double or even triple minorities to lump them all together in such a sweeping, dismissive and stereotypical way.
This video is incredibly generalized and dismissive of the ones who are genuine, and of what ex-Muslims often face.
This distinction matters greatly.
Can you please address this, or at least attempt to preface future videos on ex-Muslims with this deeply important caveat?
Thank you. I would greatly appreciate it, but my preference here is of minimal importance. I’m sure that many honest and sincere ex-Muslims would greatly appreciate it as well.
Best,
John