Believers and atheists should respect each others' freedom, and everybody else's, a brave atheist says
By B.C.
These are bad times for outspoken sceptics in countries where religion is brutally enforced, either by governments or fanatics with a self-appointed mission. Last week the atheist blogger Avijit Roy, who was of Bangladeshi origin but lived in the United States, was hacked to death at a book fair in Dhaka. It has been reported in Saudi Arabia that a young man in his twenties has been sentenced to death after he posted a video of himself ripping up a copy of the Koran.
In the far more comfortable environment of the United States, meanwhile, religious believers and sceptics denounce one another as though they were the greatest banes of one another’s lives. Atheists claim, perhaps correctly, that they face huge societal pressure not to declare their position, especially if they have any hopes of running for public office. Some religious believers say they face a liberal-humanist conspiracy to deny them the freedom to act out their beliefs, whether as employers, employees or in places of education.
But a physically courageous atheist from a Muslim-majority land says that a few months in America have reinforced his belief that believers and sceptics can and should deal courteously with one another and work together for freedom in places where it is dreadfully violated. Maikel Nabil Sanad, a young Egyptian blogger and protest leader, spent nearly a year in prison, enduring physical abuse and a hunger strike, before his release in January 2012. Both in Germany where he studied for a couple of years and in the area of Washington DC where he moved recently, he has been a guest speaker at Christian churches and synagogues: not, of course, as an advocate of atheism, but to share his views about the Middle East, democracy and liberty.
“As long as it’s grounded in mutual respect, this is perfectly possible,” he says. “I have ideas to share on democracy and human rights, and I don’t mind if my hosts are liberal, socialist or conservative. But I would refuse to speak to an extremist group whether it was religious or atheist.” Life in the United States has convinced him of two things. First, America’s absolute separation of church and state is what makes it possible for even the most passionate forms of religious belief (or non-belief) to co-exist, given that no religious or ideological group can hope to invoke state power against its rivals, and nobody is intimidated by blasphemy laws. That works better, he has concluded, than the mild forms of religious privilege that exist in most European countries. Second, campaigning for freedom of thought and expression lacks credibility if (as is usually the case) it emphasises the plight of one particular group. “You cannot protest about the Rohingya Muslims in Burma unless you also care about the fate of Christians in places where they are oppressed.”
“My ideas are evolving all the time,” says Mr Nabil. Let’s see where they go next.
