Matt Johnson

*Originally published on The News Hub, November 3, 2015

For the past two and a half years, Sam Harris and Glenn Greenwald have been embroiled in a bitter debate about the nature of contemporary Islam. The exchange has become so acrimonious – and seemingly intractable – that fans of both writers are calling for a “ceasefire.”

Not me. I agree with Steven Pinker, who thinks the reformation of Islam may prove to be “the most important issue in political ideology of the twenty-first century.” This is no time to silence the guns.

Harris maintains that Islam is uniquely dangerous. Its doctrines of martyrdom, jihad, and apostasy offer explicit warrants for violence and sectarianism. Its strident prohibitions on blasphemy authorize the suppression of speech. Its texts about the inferiority of women and homosexuals continue to license rampant misogyny, abuse, and bigotry in Muslim countries. In the most basic sense, Harris’s argument can be encapsulated like this: these ghastly ideas have logical consequences in the real world. For example, the Islamic State doesn’t arbitrarily hurl homosexuals off rooftops, “cleanse” religious minorities, and crucify insubordinate Christians. It does so because these grotesque practices have precise scriptural justifications.

Greenwald, on the other hand, spouts a litany of excuses and evasions whenever this subject comes up. In 2013, he wrote, “…the western world has been engaged in a decade-long splurge of violence, aggression and human rights abuses against Muslims…” (he lists this as one of many reasons why Harris should shut up about Islam). The “western world” also occupies Muslim lands and supports Israeli human rights violations in Gaza. Plus, don’t unhinged Christians sometimes kill abortion doctors? Don’t some orthodox Jews abuse women?

In the face of such stagnant intellectual dishonesty, Harris provided a cool breath of empiricism with this challenge: “We can settle this by holding opposing cartoon contests. You take Islam, and I’ll take any other religion on earth.”

The force of this simple observation smashes through the wall of apologetics and obscurantism that has been erected around Islamism by writers like Greenwald, Reza Aslan, Karen Armstrong, Chris Hedges, Nathan Lean, and Murtaza Hussain (key members of the “Regressive Left,” an apposite term introduced by Harris’s colleague, Maajid Nawaz).

Imagine if Greenwald – a gay, secular Jew – drew a disparaging picture of Muhammad and posted it online. He would be forced to live the rest of his days under a veil of secrecy and anxiety. Credible death threats and other lurid obscenities would permeate his inbox. Perhaps he would even begin to sympathize with Ayaan Hirsi Ali – an indefatigable champion of women’s rights and freedom of expression (or, in Greenwald’s world, a violent, fanatical zealot) – who has been a target of Islamist violence all her life.

The Onion was even more succinct than Harris – its writers made the same point about Islam’s singular propensity toward violence in only seven words: “No One Murdered Because Of This Image.” Follow the link and take a look at the picture – which religious icon is conspicuously absent? Why does everyone immediately get the joke?

Speaking of cartoons and bloodshed, why was Greenwald so quick to redirect attention from the sadistic, theocratic assault on civil society last January (the Charlie Hebdo massacre) to western policy? Or to Jews? Or, just last week, to Israel? This sort of “yes, but…” shiftiness reeks of exculpation or, at the very least, profound moral confusion. I’m with Salman Rushdie on the question of violence and free speech. If a batch of offensive cartoons lands on an editor’s desk, it’s perfectly reasonable for her to a) determine whether or not they’re in poor taste and b) trash or print them accordingly.

But when someone decides to throw a grenade through her window or gun down a few of her employees because of what she printed, Rushdie argues that “the subject is no longer about whether you should publish or not publish these things, but about how you respond to violence. Do you respond to it with cowardice or courage?” Greenwald took the opposite line. Instead of declaring his unequivocal support for free expression after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, he decried the victims and their “bigoted” cartoons. He wondered if the perpetrators felt ostracized in their adoptive society. And he posted a nauseating series of anti-Semitic cartoons to prove….what? Just how horrible free speech can be? Don’t worry, no one at The Intercept was harmed.

Harris is right to call this pure moral lunacy. Two vicious fanatics walked into a newsroom and shot everyone in sight. The horrible clatter of gunfire was punctuated by hysterical shrieks of “Allahu Akbar” and “we have avenged the prophet.” And, upon reviewing these facts, Greenwald’s first instinct was to avert his eyes from Islam.

As Nick Cohen rightly insists, if you’re afraid of Islamic violence, at least have the courage to admit it instead of hiding behind the insipid barricade of cultural sensitivity. And please don’t pretend like it takes guts to speak out against Obama or Cameron or Hollande when true liberals – people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Malala Yousafzai – are staring down the gun barrel of theocracy every day.

In one sense, I agree with Greenwald – the debate about “whether rational atheism is being used as a cover for Islamophobia and US militarism” is “long overdue.” Ceasefire be damned, it’s time to pick sides. I’m just glad this can be done without strain.