Voting conservative

So, you are a woman and/or a person of minority background who votes conservative. Why?

Is it because you want equal rights?

If equal rights for women and minorities have always been the status quo, then I understand. But, we know damn well that is not the case. Even if inequality was not as bad as or was more complicated than people think it was, you cannot deny it has been existing for a long time.

If women and minorities are given less opportunities, more likely to be horribly represented in the media and, in the worst cases, more likely to suffer from injustice, then I don’t know what to call it other than inequality.

Yes, liberals and leftists have their issues with tokenism and false promises. But, you cannot expect me to believe conservatives have a good track record of supporting pro-equality policies.

If they do, then why do the anti-feminist, anti-LGBT+ and white supremacist crowds form the majority of their voters? Why do those demographics love them so much?

And why don’t those conservative politicians seem to mind?

Is it because you are an actual proud conservative?

Okay, that’s understandable. I cannot blame you for voting candidates who share most, if not all, of your stances. But, if your politics is the one that keeps you as a second-class citizen (including in a social sense), you have to acknowledge there is a problem.

Because of it, you need to rethink about your relationship with conservatism. Maybe you create a new brand of conservatism, maybe you leave conservatism altogether, I don’t know. But, one thing for sure: getting disenfranchised by your own politics is not something to be content with.

Why are you opposed to obligatory representations? If it is because of the infantilisation and tokenism, then I – a left-leaning person – am 100% agree with you. But, you should observe your fellow conservatives’ reactions.

Are they really angered by the forcedness? Or are they angered by representations in general?

If they think it is okay for white actors to portray non-white characters that are based on real people, but it is unacceptable to turn fictional white characters non-white, it is the latter.

If they react by making racist responses (like they did to black Little Mermaid), it is the definitely latter.

Is it because you want to be loved?

Regardless of their politics, if someone “respects” you only after you start affirming their beliefs about “your people” and/or you are willing to do anything they tell you to, then they still don’t see you as a fellow human being.

They see you as a human-shaped tool which they can exploit for their political agendas; for the gullible and hateful ones, nothing affirms prejudices better than the insiders’ so-called “exposés”. Not to mention they have an added bonus of appearing tolerant, with you as their usable token.

I don’t know the exact ways to stop the hate. But surely, your common sense should tell you putting fuel into the fire won’t extinguish it.

Is it because you are against equal rights for “certain others”?

I don’t know how anyone of marginalised backgrounds think they can afford to grab each other’s throat. If your idea of empowerment is depriving “certain others” of equal rights, how are you different from the bigots who keep doing the same to you?

You know what’s funny? Even though you vote for politicians who are also definitely against your equal rights, you will keep blaming those “certain others” for your poor quality of life… and you will keep failing to see the irony.

In this case, I am thinking of feminism-appropriating reactionary transphobes and any LGBT+ people who don’t know what the T stands for.

It also applies to far-right-voting LGBT+ people who think anti-LGBT sentiment in the west mostly comes from Muslims, as if Muslims dominate the western establishments.

Is it because of inferiority complex?

You may hate being a woman. But, you will always be one, regardless of how many anti-women policies you support. And, even if you genuinely end up identifying as a trans man or non-binary, conservatives will always see you as a woman.

You can definitely leave the religions you grew up with. But, it is baffling how a person can bash a religion and its adherents and ensure their images are 100% negative by pandering to bigots’ preconceived beliefs…

… And yet, they claim they still identify with the religion and its community. Why? Why do you still wanting to belong to a community that you help dehumanising?

If you don’t know which group I am talking about, I am talking about so-called Muslim reformers living in the west.

You may hate belonging to certain ethnic or racial groups. You may leave the associated cultures. But, your lineage will stay the same. You can hate being Chinese, stop speaking Chinese and stop embracing anything Chinese. But, you will always be of Chinese-descent.

It is one thing if you genuinely cannot identify with your ancestral heritage. It is another when because you believe every person who can is a lesser human being.

You may hate your Queerness. But, sooner or later, you have to accept it is determined by nature and nurture, two things you have no control over.

If you hate being Queer and think it is a choice, why did you choose to be one in the first place? Why did you choose an identity which you consider optional and repulsive?

Is it because you have actual grievances about your communities?

If yes, then I am on board with you. I believe anyone – regardless of how marginalised they are – deserve to be scrutinised for the problems they are causing.

Obviously, if you want to confront and fix any problems, you need to try your best to be factual, you must have the ability to see the shades of grey and you must consider the different perspectives (without committing false balance, of course).

And yet, instead of forming alliances with fellow members of your communities who know the intricacies of the lives within, you choose to do so with people from outside the communities who believe in stereotypes about “your people” and actively fight against your equal rights.

They don’t care about facts, they only care about their own perspectives, they take oversimplifications to an extreme and, most importantly, their idea of “progress” is wiping the likes of you from existence.

That makes me question the legitimacy of your grievances. Maybe they were never legitimate in the first place and you are just suffering from self-hatred.

Or maybe, you are just a fucking idiot who think aligning with bigots is “tough love”.

Once again, I have the western-based so-called Muslim reformers in mind.

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Monarchism, religion and colonialism

Vox made a video about how the English monarch is still the head of state of different countries. In the comment section, I posted this comment:

As an Indonesian, I find it weird that independent countries still have a foreigner living in faraway land as their symbolic head of state. It is even weirder that the faraway land has an entirely different cultural root.

From all any of English royalty-related comments I have made, I consider that to be the least cynical and disparaging and the most matter-of-fact. I mean, Indonesia does not have a head of state who lives in a faraway land; ours, who is also our head of government, is an Indonesian citizen who grew up in Indonesia and has identified as an Indonesian all of their life. Obviously, for people like me, the idea of having a foreigner as a head of state is weird.

But, that comment still manages to ruffle feathers.

As if almost on cue, people started chastising me because I am from Indonesia, a non-Arabian country dominated by a religion of Arabian origin that is Islam, which they deem as a colonising religion. With that fact in mind, they believe I have no right to criticise.

One thing first: I agree with them that Islam is a colonising religion. In many countries, it is undoubtedly a politically, socially and culturally influential religion with large numbers of adherents. It has the ability to devour smaller and less powerful religions without direct coercions and it has definitely done so, including in Indonesia. As an Indonesian Muslim, it is a fact that I have to acknowledge.

But, that’s the only thing I agree with them. I don’t believe a religion is a cultural colonising power.

In essence, religion is a set of spiritual rituals and worldviews. But, the latter are often expressed using ancient figures of speech which original meanings are unknown by modern audience; this allows anyone to create their own interpretations, which may or may not be influenced by one’s cultural backgrounds.

Sunni Islam – the disproportionately dominant Islamic branch in the world and in Indonesia – is a highly decentralised religion, which gives its adherents even more freedom to interpret… and also the freedom to follow any imams as they desire or to not follow any at all.

In Indonesia, the Javanese and Sundanese people – the biggest and second biggest ethnic groups, respectively – are predominantly-Muslim and yet, their traditional arts are still dominated by South Asian influences; the Santris are the only ones who embrace more Middle Eastern ones.

There are indeed Muslim-majority ethnic groups whose cultures have strong Arabian influences. But, they don’t speak Arabic and they certainly do not identify themselves as Arabs. The actual Arab-Indonesians themselves are uninterested in Arabising their homeland; not even all of them can speak Arabic.

Most Indonesian mosques constructed before the 20th century utilised local architectural styles. Oh, and Indonesia’s national official symbols are taken from Hindu and Buddhist mythologies, as a tribute to the region’s Hindu and Buddhist roots.

And even a centralised religion is not that rigid. Yes, the prospect of having spirituality dictated by someone living in a faraway land unnerves me. But, it is still culturally flexible.

In Indonesia, some Catholic congregations love incorporating traditional cultures into their liturgies. Languages, costumes and music, they have no issues staying in touch with the local traditions.

If I use my detractors’ logic, that means I have to see the entire western world as a Middle-Eastern colony, considering Christianity is also from the Middle East.

Regardless of its place and culture of origin, regardless of how centralised the leadership is, a religion can be moulded to fit to any cultures as one pleases… as it has always been since forever.

Meanwhile, a living monarch does not have such malleability. No matter how non-white and non-English your Commonwealth realm country is, no matter how much you try to twist it, the living white English-born and raised monarch will always be white and English.

Oh, and the bit of info about national symbols? It shows how Indonesians aren’t interested in having their country represented by anything Islamic. On a symbolic official level, many of us prefer to be represented by our Hindu and Buddhist ancestors.

If you see Indonesian tourism ads and take a peek at what Indonesian festivals abroad have to offer, you will see Islam is barely mentioned or depicted, if at all. Islam takes centre stage only when the occasions are specifically religious (e.g. Ramadhan fast breaks or Idul Fitri celebrations).

Every time Islamists champion Sharia-fication of Indonesian law, they get harshly reminded by moderate Muslims that Indonesia is a Muslim-majority country and NOT an Islamic one. Unlike the Islamists, the moderates are actually considerate about the religious minorities.

Basically, if you want to call me a hypocrite for posting that comment, make sure a living monarch is entirely comparable to religion and prove that Islam has been used to symbolically represent Indonesia as a whole.

Those “rebuttals” were not even the worst I received. Someone took it to a next level… by claiming that the legitimacy of the Indonesian president is the exact same as the King of England’s. Just like how the monarch hasn’t lived in every single Commonwealth realm, the Indonesian president hasn’t lived in every single Indonesian province, they say.

Okay, then.

Yes, it is true Indonesian Presidents haven’t lived in every single province. But, those provinces are… you know… provinces. They are not sovereign states, they are territories of a sovereign state. While presidents have always been Muslims and of Javanese descent (which unfortunately is a sign of poor ethnic and religious representations), they are elected by the people (at least after the fall of Soeharto); citizens from all provinces have the right to vote.

Meanwhile, not only the English monarch is the head of state of different independent countries, it is also a hereditary position and the person holding it was never elected by the people. Apples and oranges, but far more idiotic.

Those are just reminders of how monarchists – especially English ones – are borderline cultish.

If they are not borderline cultish, they wouldn’t do whataboutism, they wouldn’t project, they would try their best to argue using facts and commonsense…

And they certainly would not get riled up by one of the least offensive and provocative anti-monarchist comments ever made.

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What I, a Sunni Muslim, think of the seemingly endless Catholic Church atrocities

Obviously, to say they are an affront to mankind is an understatement. Unless you are a special kind of human being, you don’t need me to realise that. But, there is something which many people don’t seem to notice: it is also a case of giant missed opportunity with horrendous consequences.

Let me go on a tangent first.

The Catholic Church is not just a religious establishment, it is also a highly centralised organisation of clergymen, complete with ranks and uniform admittance processes. Meanwhile, Sunni Islam – the disproportionately dominant denomination – is a highly decentralised religion; we don’t have our own equivalent of the pope and bishops and – in some countries, at least – becoming clerics do not require formal certifications and we are allowed to choose imams and/or Islamic institutions that suit us.

To sum it up, Roman Catholic church is packed with global and official interconnectivity. It is comparable to a unitary country with strong central government. The Sunni one……. well….. I don’t know how to describe it eloquently.

If I have to describe the Sunni world, it is like a country with barely functioning central government, allowing millions of regional authorities to reign over. Each of those regional authority has a varying level of authoritativeness and varying size of jurisdictions…… and many, if not all, of those jurisdictions overlap with each other. Not to mention the citizens are of diverse cultural, racial and political backgrounds – which may or may not greatly influence their religious identities – and they have varying level of experiences with diversity.

As a Sunni myself, I have mixed feelings about this.

On one hand, it feels nice there is no stranger in a faraway land formally dictating my Muslimness. But, on the other hand, it makes tackling religious extremism extremely difficult.

Obviously, that’s not an excuse to do nothing. If you see something, the least you can do is to say something. But, people should realise that the unrelenting convolutedness means tackling Sunni extremism is not as easy as flipping a table.

Now, about this blogpost’s title…

It has always been crystal clear the church is powerful. It has the ability to micromanage the characters and behaviours of every single person within its ranks. While nothing can be 100% effective, it could have easily reduced the abuses to a handful of rare and isolated cases.

Instead, it chooses the complete opposite path.

It consciously protects the many sexual predators within its ranks by not reporting them to the local authorities, consequentially turning Roman Catholic clergyman into a dream profession for sexual predators.

It consciously let the Magdalene laundries to freely abused the “fallen women” for many years and, to this day, the Catholic orders involved still refuse to take responsibility, unrepentantly painting themselves as heroes.

It consciously let some members of its ranks to support Canada’s cultural genocide against the indigenous people by participating in some of the residential schools.

Don’t even forget about the goddamn inquisition.

I am not going to pretend overseeing one of the world’s biggest organisations is easy peasy. I am also not going to pretend the church never does anything noble; I mean, Catholic schools – in some countries, at least – are known for their high quality, a fact which even many Muslims wholeheartedly acknowledge.

But, it is infuriating how an institution chose to not inoculate itself against evil despite having the enormous power to do so, consequentially letting itself becoming a global and historical super spreader of human depravities.

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I also have to exclude the Shia Islam – the second biggest denomination – from this conversation because not only Shia extremism is far less globally consequential, I also know almost nothing about Shia islam. I have heard that Shia leadership is more centralised. But, I don’t know to what extent and I don’t know if it differs from one sub-denomination to another.

Don’t even get started on the even smaller denominations. I don’t know if extremism is even prevalent in any of them.

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“You should ‘go out’ more”…

… is what people usually say to me in arguments. When they say ‘go out’, they mean leaving my safe space and exposing myself to different worldview.

Obviously, that’s a sound advice. We should thrive to avoid any echo chambers if we truly have the desire to grow and discern our reality. But, I do know those people don’t care about my well-being; they just hate it that I refuse to appease to them.

People who love exaggerating the flaws of Marvel films think I need to watch anything other than Hollywood blockbusters, not realising that my favourite film directors are Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman and Stanley Kubrick, arguably giants of arthouse cinema, and some of my favourite films are not even American, let alone Hollywood.

Some people think I will grow out of my “extremely woke” politics and suggest leaving my echo chamber. It is interesting because not only there is nothing radical about centre-left politics, I used to be a lot more conservative. I also live in a country where even self-proclaimed moderates are very socially conservative. Not to mention the many conservatives, libertarians, liberals and centrists I constantly run into online.

Pro and anti-multiculturalism and anti-Muslim westerners have something in common: they genuinely believe that the west is the only diverse place on earth. The differences? The pro wants to feel superior about their own countries, thinking simply seeing minorities on the streets and having foreign ancestors boost their multicultural cred. The other camps think other places aren’t being forced to be diverse. When I refute their factually incorrect claims, they condescendingly suggest me to interact with people of differing cultural and religious backgrounds.

What they don’t know is I am from Indonesia, a country with six officially recognised religions and literally hundreds of ethnic groups; my hometown specifically has five dominant ethnic groups, which is unusual even for an Indonesian city, and has visible Christian and Buddhist minorities. I attended a middle school where I was one of the few non-Chinese-Indonesian and non-Buddhist students and I got my degree from an Australian university. Oh, and virtually all of my online friends are foreigners and much of them are non-Muslims.

My exposure to different cultures and religions is so mundane. If it wasn’t for my interactions with dumb westerners, I would have kept taking my diverse upbringing for granted.

“The more you know, the more you don’t know”

The older I get, the more I can relate to the quote. As much as I want to see myself as extremely knowledgeable, I have to acknowledge the horizon’s infinite vastness.

I haven’t tasted every film style of imaginable. I haven’t matured politically. And I have only been exposed to a tiny chunk of the world’s cultures and religions. I need to keep learning.

But, as one can tell, my aforementioned opponents clearly don’t care. They all share something in common: the belief that some or all of their opinions are absolutely correct. My mere disagreement is more than enough for them to make a baseless assumption about my personal life, which they make even before I say anything about it.

One may argue I am a hypocrite because I also make assumptions about others when I disagree with them. But, there is a difference.

My aforementioned opponents make assumptions simply because I disagree, that’s literally the sole reason. Meanwhile, I make assumptions based not only on how (un)reasonable and factually (in)accurate their opinions are, but also the anecdotes which they willingly share.

If you say enjoyment of pop culture is a sign of immaturity, I can assume you are a self-righteous bitch who want to feel undeservingly high and mighty about your tastes.

If you say centre-left politics – which is closer to the centre than it is to the far end – is too “woke”, I can assume you are swinging too far to the right end. I can also assume you are unable to perceive life’s many many shades of grey.

If you say multiculturalism can only be found in the west, I can assume you are jingostic westerners who think your countries are more special than they really are and/or you know nothing about lives beyond your borders.

If you admit that you intentionally avoid interactions with the “others” and avoid visiting other countries because you “know” how bad they are, I can definitely say you don’t care about the truth, you just want to affirm your preconceived beliefs.

Again, I refuse to say I have fully escaped all kinds of bubbles. But, I am confident I have escaped more bubbles than my opponents do.

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Revisiting Life of Pi (the movie) after ten years

No, I haven’t read the book.

When I first watched it, I was immediately awed by the experience. Initially, I found that baffling.

Yes, I do love ethereal visual aesthetics and stories with magical and spiritual themes. But, I have also watched other similar films. None of them – not even the works of Andrei Tarkovsky, one of my favourite directors – have spiritually galvanised me like Life of Pi has.

Seriously, I spent months arguing with my online friends and reading online essays about the film. I tried to decipher the magical happenings by relating them to Pi’s religiously syncretic spirituality and his relationship with his rationalist father. Inevitably, I ended up in self-contemplation about my own life.

From all things in life, I get much of my spiritual awakening from a Hollywood film. Why the hell is that?

First thing first, I have the MBTI AKA Myer-Briggs Type Indicator hypothesis.

Around the time of the film’s release, I was extremely obsessed with the personality type classification due to my early stage of “self-searching”. I identified as an INFJ (Google it yourself) and the film’s titular character was identified by many as one as well. I might be subconsciously influenced by the words of strangers.

But, this hypothesis falls apart quickly as I still love the film even after I become disillusioned with MBTI (it is basically horoscope with psychology veneer). Besides, there were also many other fictional characters and real-life public figures perceived as INFJs, none of which I could relate to (one of them was Hitler, for god’s sake).

Maybe it is indeed the films’ depiction of spirituality. After I dissected it again for the first time in almost ten years, the film does feel different from the others.

While “raw” is not how I describe it, the depiction is certainly not understated. Pi is not just a person who identifies with three different religions, he is also one who endlessly explores spirituality; his metaphysical journey is always at the frontline of his life story.

But, it does not feel like the film imposes his worldview upon us. Instead of keeping us as emotionally-detached spectators, it wants us to empathise with his experiences. It also refrains from utilising any explicitly philosophical dialogues; they can get too technical, overt and sanctimonious.

Unusual for a story with a religious main protagonist, it also wants us to be considerate of the opposing worldview. Now, my experiences with some self-proclaimed rationalists tells me they can be as insufferable as religious zealots. But, Pi’s father, Santosh, is not one of those pseudo-intellectuals.

While he can comes across as cold-hearted*, he teaches Pi to not fall for blind faiths and to not let sentimentality controls his life. In fact, not only his son ends up as a spiritually and emotionally well-rounded individual, the latter skill helps him surviving the perils of getting lost at sea; in such situation, even vegetarians like him have to kill animals for food.

The open-minded contemplation of the other worldview also gives us a nuanced paradigm to interpret Pi’s story.

On one hand, we can take his fantastical story as his attempt to suppress his memory, which is horrific as it involves surviving as a castaway, witnessing murders, killing the murderer and cannibalising his rotting cadaver. The memory suppression is a natural response.

At the same time, the film is not robotic enough to dismiss the story’s possibility. Would I believe it if someone claimed to experience it? No, I wouldn’t. But, I also acknowledge that the world is a bizarre place.

I mean, just take a look at nature. Tectonic plates are basically giant chunks of land who always bump into each other. Many of those deep sea creatures look like aliens. The outer space has black holes. Every single living being on earth is each other’s very distant relative.

While the living island cannot scientifically exist, carnivorous plants do exist and the water surrounding the Italian island of Castello Aragonese has significant content of carbonic acid, which can be corrosive if nothing’s done about the climate change. Nature is one giant weirdo.

Scepticism is indeed a must. But, if nature – the tangible and measurable nature – is weird, we shouldn’t dismiss any human experiences simply because they sound weird.

Maybe this is why I was so obsessed with the film. It goes beyond simply depicting a character’s spiritual journey. It tries its best depicting one that is emotionally exhausting but ever-lastingly rewarding… and it wants us to have a taste of it.

And, as I was in the early stage of “self-searching”, I (probably) subconsciously craved something more nuanced than the glorified pigeonholes of MBTI.

Oh, and I have mixed feelings about the film’s multicultural nature.

On one hand, the film could have been more multilingual. As Pi is from Pondicherry, a Tamil-majority Indian union territory that is formerly a French colony, there could have been more Tamil and French dialogues. Instead, most of them are in English.

But, I also acknowledge the film does a relatively great job in depicting the universality of human experiences. From my eyes, while the titular character is inseparable from his cultural and religious identities, people from all over can easily feel for him in spite of the differences.

The film feels even more multicultural when you learn about Ang Lee, the director.

He is a US-based Taiwanese director. His first two feature films are about the lives of Chinese (mainland and Taiwanese) immigrants in the US, his third is about the clash between Chinese traditions and western-influenced modernity, his fourth is a Jane Austen novel adaptation and many of his subsequent films are set in America and feature American characters.

He is certainly a filmmaker who has experiences traversing cultural differences.

As flawed as the film’s multiculturalism can be, I don’t find it tokenist at all. It does help reminding me about the universality of human experiences.

I don’t see Pi as someone who belongs to the “others”. I see him as a fellow human being.

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*A bit of tangent about Pi’s father, Santosh.

He does come across as cold-hearted. But, I don’t believe he is. There are times when his emotions are glaring for everyone to see.

He looks genuinely sad when he announces the family’s migration to Canada, he tries to physically fight the French cook for disrespecting his vegetarian wife and insulting Indians like him as “curry eaters” and he – along with his family -looks red-faced afterwards.

Oh, and he names one of his sons – the titular character – Piscine Molitor. Why? Because his friend is a swimmer whose favourite swimming pool is at the Piscine Molitor Hotel in Paris. There is nothing rational about that.

He is just as interesting as his youngest son.

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How to build a civilisation?

Obviously, this requires complex answers. But, if I have to answer it simplistically, I would say civilisation requires good education and discipline.

Maybe it is just me. But, I doubt one can build great things by being disorganised airheads. I mean, it makes perfect sense. I state the obvious because it seems some people have other thoughts about this.

In the west, there are people with strong far-right inclinations who genuinely believe patriarchy, racial and cultural homogeneity, Christianity, cisheteronormativity and machismo built ancient civilisations.

In the Muslim world, there are people who credited Islamic theocracy and highly devoted populace for the Islamic Golden Age. While I encounter them way less, it is hard to ignore them.

If I try hard enough, I am sure I would find even more absurd shits people claim as civilisation builders.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s pretend their notions about ancient societies are accurate (very likely not)*. It still does not make any sense.

Those ancient western civilisations might by misogynistic, homogenous and devotedly Christian. But then, the same things can be said about the least developed parts of the western world.

Take America, for example. Admittedly, the blue states and cities are far from perfect; they certainly have their share of problems. But, you cannot expect me to believe their red counterparts are doing any better.

Those red states have less diverse economic sectors, higher teenage pregnancy rates, higher obesity rates, higher dependence on federal welfare and higher high school dropout rates. Not to mention they are less likely to possess America’s major economic, scientific and cultural centres.

That’s the same with other western countries. London, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, they tend to be less religious and more liberal-minded than most other places in their respective countries.

While correlation certainly does not equal causation, it also reminds us that misogyny, homogeneity and Christian devotion do not guarantee civilisation-building.

The Muslim world also has something similar. If Islamic theocracy builds civilisation, then explain why Saudi Arabia, Taliban-ruled territories and ISIS-ruled territories are not the most developed parts of the Muslim world. From all theocratic** Muslim-majority countries, Iran is the only one with high rate of research papers publication and thriving film industry.

In Indonesia specifically, the Sharia-practicing province of Aceh is also far from the most developed.

Of course, I have to give another ‘correlation does not equal causation’ disclaimer. There are more religiously pluralistic provinces which are equally underdeveloped or even more. Not to mention that places outside Java are relatively more neglected.

But, it also proves enforced Islamic devotion does not guarantee progress.

My point is even if ancient civilisations were as religiously devoted, misogynistic and homogenous as they want to believe, it still does not prove anything.

It only shows how societies grow despite of those traits, NOT because of.

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*Let’s face it: the average people often have wrong facts about the past. They love exaggerating and whitewash the past lives. Hence, why I am sceptical about their claims. Heck, I already know that they get some facts wrong.

What we consider as western civilisation already started long before Christianity took over. Ancient Rome only became Christian in its later years and Ancient Greece was never Christian.

The territories which experienced the Islamic Golden Age also had thriving Christian and Jewish communities. In fact, Al-Ma’arri – a highly anti-religious philosopher and poet – was a highly-regarded figure. While I cannot say whether irreligiosity was common or not, it is obvious that being anti-religious did not stop others from admiring you.

**Having a state religion is not the same as being a theocracy. Having one means the state subsidises its rituals, without necessarily deriving its governmental policies from the religion’s teachings. England is a good example of that.

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Palatable fundamentalism

Let us compare Christian fundamentalists in America with Muslim fundamentalists in Indonesia.

Notice how ultra-zealous Christians in America dress ordinarily. While some wear the usual formal apparels like suits and ties, many others are dressed very casually in T-shirts, hoodies, jeans; even the young women wear very short shorts while doing outdoor activities. Basically, they dress like the typical Americans.

I also notice they are media-savvy. They are able to create watchable media content watchable (assuming one can tolerate the messages). They know how to make themselves presentable for the masses.

In many cases, their music is far from highbrow. It is often easily digestible middle-of-the-road pop music.

Oh, and don’t forget most of them use English -the most spoken language in America- as their liturgical tongue. Consequentially, the spiritually does not feel burdened by the duty of learning a new language.

Compared that to Islamic fundamentalism in Indonesia.

Fundamentalist Muslims -the ones in Indonesia, at least- have their own fashion sense. The men love wearing a garment called gamis (some Arabs may refer to it as thawb) and, when they do wear pants, they are always ankle-length. For headwear, they mostly wear either turban or peci (not to be confused with kopiah; for reasons, Wikipedia thinks peci and kopiah are the exact same thing). When they do sport facial hair, long goatee is the preferred style.

For the women, when they are not wearing face veil, they (unsurprisingly) wear jilbab (or hijab as many westerners call it) and very long dresses, so long you can barely see their feet.

Obviously, it is a huge contrast to how the majority of Indonesians dress: highly-westernised. But, it is also a huge contrast to how more pious Muslims in the olden-days dressed.

Judging from what I see in photos (they may not be representative), the men wore either batik shirt or baju koko and kopiah as their preferred headwear; when they did sport facial hair, it was never visually prominent. The women wore garments like sarong kebaya or baju kurung; when they wore headwear, it was usually headscarf which still exposes some skin and hair.

Speaking of pious Indonesians in general (not just the fundies), they are not that media-savvy. While we already had religious programmes on TV, entirely religious media outlets were unheard of for most Indonesians. Even now, with their recent emergence, they are still a niche in the country’s media industry.

Arabic is the liturgical language of Islam. Even among Muslims who are not fundamentalists but still pious nonetheless, there seems to be a burden to learn Arabic, as if the lack of fluency would invalidate their faith.

I don’t know if the fundies enjoy music or not. But, I do know that many musicians (not all) who create Islamic music seem adamant on including Arab influences in their works. With all things considered, if the fundies enjoy music, it would definitely be Arab-sounding.

Let me be clear: I don’t believe American Christian fundamentalism is as violent as Indonesian Islamic fundamentalism. But, I can confidently say its palatability makes it more sinister.

Not only the Muslim fundamentalists dress different from the rest of Indonesians, they are also extremely obsessed with anything Arab (or what they perceive as such), more so than the actual Arab-Indonesians themselves. They stick out like sore thumbs.

The American Christian fundamentalists, on the other hand, dress like ordinary Americans and they are culturally very American-centric. Basically, they easily blend in with the rest of the populace.

I believe that makes the American Christian fundies more terrifying because not only they have an easier time recruiting new members and infiltrating the establishment, they are also more likely to have people defending them. In fact, some people may accuse the critics of being a bunch of leftist snowflakes who get offended by everything.

For shallow morons who always take appearances for granted, it sounds absurd that normal-looking people can be a threat to humanity.

For them, we should always judge a book by its cover. Reading is for losers.

Considering how some westerners defend the alt-right, insisting the extremist movement it is not run by extremists, my assumption is within reason.

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Two bad reasons and one good reason to explain your faith

Bad reason 1: wanting to fight off prejudice.

Some people may harass you into explaining why the religious extremists -who happen to share the same label with you- do the things they do. And you may think civil engagements will prevent them from demonising you.

How cutely naive of you.

The fact that they already try to lump you with the extremists without even knowing you show how they already have their beliefs set in stone and the only thing they care about is affirming them. The more you explain everything, the more they feel their beliefs affirmed, regardless of what you actually say and do.

If you assert that not all of your fellow believers are evil, they will accuse you of denying the existence of extremism. If you have proven yourself as one of those good guys, they will insist the extremists are the true believers and you are the fake ones. If you are a Muslim, they will accuse you of Taqiyya -a word that they keep on dishonestly misdefining- and perceive every single one of your word as a lie, unless you willingly become their lapdogs and sell your fellow Muslims out.

Adding a personal experience of mine, in which someone accused me of mocking victims of Islamic extremism, simply because I shared a video that mocked anti-Muslim bigotry.

The thing about humans is we can only truly and voluntarily change for the better if we have the desire in the first place. The obligation to initiate the transformation is on us, NOT on others.

Why do we have to prove that we are worthy of being treated like human beings? Why do we have to prove that bigotry is wrong? Why do we have to be civil and accommodating towards those who want us dead simply because we are different?

Bad reason 2: wanting to rationally justify it.

Here’s a bitter pill to swallow: your religious faith does not make any sense.

Let me start with my own personal story.

When I was a lot younger, I used to think science and religion were the exact same thing, but expressed differently. I tried to use science to justify the validity of my religion. Obviously, that’s stupid. Nowadays, I believe science and religion serve entirely different purposes and they inherently cannot be mixed together.

After dropping my pseudoscientific tendency, I started to have a difficulty describing my relationship with Islam; it was frustrating to experience something and yet unable to describe it concretely.

One day, I saw Reza Aslan’s interview on The Young Turks, in which he stated the cause of his persistent religiosity, despite years of studying religions sceptically: the religious symbolism felt personally meaningful to him.

And I fell in love with his answer! Finally, I knew how to precisely put my faith in words without pseudoscience!

Well, except, there was nothing about precise about that. I was so smitten by it, I didn’t realise how abstract it was and I thoughtlessly used it justify my belief, both to my fellow Muslims (many of whom despise my liberal attitudes) and non-Muslims. I didn’t know Aslan’s exact thought process and personal experiences… and yet, I acted like I did; I acted as if his were exactly similar to mine.

It didn’t take me long to realise how it made no sense. I sounded like a rambling idiot (still do). It didn’t help that I tried to frame a highly metaphysical opinion as objective and rational. Aslan, on the other hand, never tried to frame that opinion of his as such.

You may argue I am just projecting myself onto others and you may argue other people’s religiosity may be more authentic and more rational than mine. Growing up and still living in a religious environment, I have listened to lots of people describing their religious spirituality and, when it comes to the roots of their religiosity, they can be categorised into three:

Those who are religious because they grew up religious, those who feel saved by their religions and those who use pseudoscience to validate their religions.

Obviously, my categorisation is flawed. Not only it is not scientific, it is very rigid, ignoring that anyone and anything in life will always be difficult to put into boxes; in fact, according to my own categorisation, I used to belong to two categories.

But, despite that, I can confidently say all the people I observe have something in common: they are emotionally-attached to their religions.

I don’t see how any of the aforementioned traits are products of reason and scientific inquiries.

A good reason: you are a fucking asshole

If you love shoving your belief down other people’s throats, to the point where you won’t give up until every living being on earth converts, then you do have to explain yourself!

Fortunate for other people, you are the kind of people who are more than willing to explain yourselves, which means you are responsive to every question and argument bombarded at you, which means you open your faceholes a lot more, which means you will always dig deeper holes for yourselves.

Yes, I am certain your words will always be nothing but verbal diarrhoea. I mean, you believe the religions you happen to belong to are the only correct ones and are the only ways to be moral human beings. How can anyone with brains think you are capable of sound thinking?

You have committed every single fallacy in the book and you have incited hatred and even violence against non-believers. Unless you truly repent, there is no reason for me to believe you won’t stop being cunts any time soon.

Obviously, you are human beings. Eventually, you may get tired of having bombarded with loads of possibly hostile questions. When you have reached that point…. well, you better suck it up, buttercup!

You have divided the already-divided world even further and your hateful words have directly and indirectly contributed to violent and sometimes deadly attacks against people you refuse to see as human beings. You cannot spew venom and then complain when you are on the receiving end. You have to fucking endure it, you bunch of worthless fucks!

People hate you not because you happen to share labels with assholes, people hate you because you are the assholes!

Oh, and let’s not pretend that you are not a reason why your peaceful fellow believers become victims of bigotry. You definitely are.

Do you seriously think you do not contribute to the creation and affirmation the stereotypes? Do you seriously think all of your fellow believers see you lobotomised apes as martyrs?

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Yes, I do realise part one and part three also apply to any forms of bigotry. But, I focus on the religious one because part two is strictly a religion-related topic.

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The (so-called) United States of Islam 2

In the previous essay, I talked about how cute it is that non-Muslims are more obsessed with Muslims’ so-called unity than we are. Now, I will focus on my interactions with them. Disclaimer: I cannot confirm whether my fellow Muslims share my experiences.

If you have joined any conversations about Islam and/or Muslims, you would have heard of taqiyya and how people intentionally misinterpret it.

I won’t talk about the taqiyya-screaming crowd. Conversing with them is like to talking unhinged sentient walls that run in circles. I will talk about the ones who were open-minded enough to move the conversations forward, but still close-minded enough to move the goddamn goal posts.

Instead of dissecting those individuals one by one, I will summarise the gist of their belief as a group.

Most of the time, it started with my complain about our image as a monolith, which disregards our vast racial, ethnical, cultural, political and yes, even theological diversity. Even some Muslim-majority countries boast a high level of cultural diversity which tokenist westerners can only dream of.

If they didn’t use the Taqiyya card, they would “refute” me by claiming that Muslims do have a pope. But, they could not think of a single name! Those who could usually mentioned rulers of countries like Saudi Arabia or Jihadists who proclaim themselves as rulers of all Muslims.

Anyone with basic knowledge about Islam and Muslims know how brainless those people sound.

First of all, there are two main branches of Islam: Sunni and Shia; globally, the former is the majority while the latter is a minority. Mind you, I still haven’t mentioned the relatively smaller branches like Ahmadiyyah and Sufism… and how each branch has its own different madhabs or schools of thought.

How can the ruler of Saudi Arabia rule the entire Muslim world? Never mind the non-Sunnis, even many Sunnis would not be happy about having their religious lives dictated by someone who doesn’t share their madhab. Don’t forget about the ever-volatile Middle Eastern politics being a contributing factor.

I should also mention there are non-Turkish Muslims who believe Turkey -with Sultan Smeagol as the president- should take the lead. They genuinely believe in Neo-Ottomanism despite not being of Turkic heritage. They are like the Turkish version of Weeaboos.

In my home country Indonesia specifically, Muslim citizens have a long list of religious authorities to choose from. There are organisations like the ministry of religions, MUI, NU, Muhammadiyah and FPI.

You can also choose one out of many celebrity preachers or the imam in your neighbourhood mosque. You can choose more than one authorities at the same time and cherrypick their words or none at all and choose to interpret the teachings yourselves.

The self-proclaimed popes “refutation” was obviously their gotcha attempt. They didn’t take into account that I was not dumb enough to think authority -whether de jure or de facto– was valid without recognition.

If I proclaim myself as your ruler out of the blue, your immediate reaction would be seeing me as someone who needs psychiatric interventions and deserves a swirly, NOT as someone worthy to be led by.

Here’s a tip: unless you want to be seen as a pitiful human being with underused brain, never use the words of madmen we never associate with as your smoking guns against us.

At this stage, some would start using the taqiyya card. Those who didn’t would acknowledge the non-existence of a Muslim pope.

But, the venom-spewing didn’t stop there.

Instead of respecting our distinct sense of collectiveness, they insisted we should be more centralised like the Christians are if we want to be free from extremism. Of course, this insistence is problematic.

For one, it is naive. The idea that simply having a pope will help us fighting extremism means we have to believe every authority figure is morally upright… and we know damn well only bootlickers believe that.

Christian denominations like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism and Roman Catholicism are highly-centralised yet still afflicted with social illnesses, some of which are undoubtedly caused and perpetuated by the leaders themselves; Roman Catholicism in particular is infamous for interfering with countries’ domestic politics, even to this day. Should I also mention about how centralised ISIS and Al-Qaeda are?

Secondly, Christianity is not centralised. Its denominations are. Believe it or not, only Roman Catholics acknowledge the pope as their spiritual leader.

Lastly, they were obviously irked with me shattering their make-believe. If they weren’t, they would have gladly moved on and learned from their mistakes. Instead, they demanded us to fit into the pigeonhole. They believed it was our moral duty to abide by their words.

They also unwittingly contradicted themselves. They demonised us because supposedly being one giant organisation made us prone to radicalisation. But now, they demanded us to become one giant organisation if we actually care about fighting extremism, framing our refusal to abide as a triumph for the extremists.

They are like parents who verbally abuse us for not doing something and then verbally abuse us for doing it.

They don’t care about the truths and they don’t care about humanity. They just want excuses to shove their beliefs down our throats and to make Uncle Toms out of every Muslim they encounter.

They just want excuses to be tokenist, gas-lighting, goal post-moving, delusional cunts.

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Being PC with Islam

As much as I am opposed to the many stances of western conservatives, I agree with them on one thing: western liberals and leftists are too PC with Islam.

If Christianity -a religion with long history of atrocities- can be easily criticised, then the same thing should also apply to Islam -also a religion with long history of atrocities.

If you really care about the truths, then you should open to the idea that nothing is free from scrutiny. You should be open about seeing your beloved religion from entirely new and possibly unfavourable lights.

Of course, many western conservatives don’t think that way.

They don’t care about intellectual honesty. They are just grumpy that not everyone in the world adheres to and cherishes their beloved religion.

They probably think they can avert any negative attentions away from Christianity. Of course, that’s stupid… especially if you are from the west

There is a reason why many western liberals and leftists despise Christianity: many grew up dealing with awful Christians.

The homophobes, the transphobes, the racists, the religious zealots, the history distorters, the conspiracists, the bootlickers, literally some of the worst people they encountered growing were practicing Christians!

Don’t forget that those same Christians constantly insist how any ideologies other than Conservatism are inherently incompatible with Christianity.

I am not saying it justifies the anti-Christianity bias; as it is can be a slippery slope to bigotry against Christians, I feel uncomfortable about condoning it. I am not saying progressive Christians don’t exist; believe it or not, there are Christians who are as progressive as non-religious liberals and leftists, if not more.

What I am saying is the anti-Christianity bias did not appear out of thin air. If you consciously assert yourselves as representatives of your fellow believers and ugliness is all you can offer, you don’t have the privilege to be shocked when people end up despising your religion!

It is literally your fault people hate your fellow believers and your beloved religion!

If it is acceptable for non-Muslim migrants from Muslim-majority countries to be Islamophobic, then it should be acceptable for non-Christians from Christian-majority western countries to be anti-Christianity.

I condone neither. But, you have to be consistent: if one is acceptable for you, so should be the other one.

Oh, and you cannot claim to be concerned about Muslims’ misogynistic and homophobic behaviours when you and your fellow conservatives are guilty of the same thing.

We know damn well you are virtue signalling.

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