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Be not afraid

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Q & A on Feb 14, 2008

This week, I participated in a debate about whether democratic governments are obliged to protect Muslim citizens who live under threat of death merely for opposing Islamists.

Many of you who watched are suggesting that I remind people to sign my petition against death threats. Almost 3,000 have already done so, but freedom of conscience surely deserves more friends.  Please sign your name and city. Don’t let give violent Islamists the authority to intimidate you into anonymity.

There’s a second reason for issuing this reminder now. Yesterday, a Danish journalist wrote me this message:

“A group of men has just been captured. They had plans of killing one of the Muhammad cartoonists here in Denmark. I would like to know if you still have the security that you had in Toronto. Do you have police surveillance or do you go as you please? Do you still live the way you told me a few years ago - ‘if I die, I die’?”

My response:

“I’m now living in New York where daily protection for me is better than in Canada. The death threats are still coming; in fact, I received a fresh round of them only two weeks ago. But I refuse to hide — or be cowed into conformity. I ‘m convinced it’s more dignified to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

My decision to speak up is an active choice, an exercise of personal agency. If die for making that choice, then at least I will have lived on my own terms.  At my funeral, let it be said that ’she sacrificed something she was already willing to give — not something that terrorists stole from her.’

Ultimately, I refuse to hand the enemies of reason and humanity more power by sanctifying what they can snuff out. They can take my physical being, but they’ll never, ever,  be able to kill my ideas or the spirit behind them. Gandhi would have approved.”

Allow me to explain the last line. Gandhi advised that in the face of genocidal evil, we must resist vigorously yet non-violently. Should the resistance effort prove utterly fruitless, then something else needs to be done. Since reciprocal violence wasn’t an option for Gandhi, his answer was to die voluntarily as a way of exposing the sheer depth of the evil in our midst. Until then, he emphasized, resist.

Speaking purely personally, I can’t disagree. I’m prepared to die in order to shine a spotlight on the horrors of Islamist abuse — as long as that’s the only dignified choice I have left. The reason this approach doesn’t make me a martyr is that I recognize all other options have yet to be exhausted. So I’m not cruising for death; just aware of its possibility and content to press forward in spite of it. Non-violent resistance remains an option, to say nothing of a necessity.

Another reason I’m no victim is that I insist on remembering those who don’t have the profile or platform that I do. They include Kenyan democracy activists and human rights defenders who are receiving death threats through SMS texts, emails and phone calls. Women Living Under Muslims Laws has issued a bulletin about this.

Amid all the threats, it’s easy to believe that we’re powerless. But feeling inadequate doesn’t mean being so.  Signing your name and city to my petition is a shout-out that you live your values openly.  The meek may inherit the earth, but God knows they won’t save it.

Of course, some will hate your guts for supporting those who dissent with Islamist extremism. Beauty is, you’ll have guts.