Why is it so hard to criticize Islam?
I am an apostate from Catholicism, living in France, who lived through the vote on the law allowing same-sex marriage. I left the Church during that period, after looking into Catholicism through its texts and realizing that the religion was deeply homophobic. It was also around then that conversion therapies were banned by Europe.
It was through those issues that I was drawn into debates about Islam, and I noticed how cold Muslims were about the suicides of gay people, whereas Catholics tended more to dodge the subject, saying they condemned the act, or that it was a trial, or other nonsense of that kind.
Little by little I realized that criticizing Islam is taboo. Even among non-Muslims. Paradoxically, that is what pushed me to take an interest in Islam more and more. As the Japanese say: the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
I currently follow a collective of influencers who are apostates from Islam. French speakers may recognize Jack le Fou.
I have to admit this is something I struggle to understand: that we are not allowed to criticize Islam, and that people do not realize they are defending a totalitarian ideology.
I know the reason that is usually given. We do not criticize Islam because it plays into the hands of the far right. But in that case, why does the left not criticize Islam, so as to cut the ground from under the right-wingers? In fact it is a circular argument, because anyone who dares to criticize Islam is labeled far right, and therefore, since everyone who criticizes Islam is labeled far right, people conclude that only right-wingers criticize Islam.
And I cannot understand how someone can be on the left and think it is a good thing not to criticize an ideology like that. I grew up in France, and my country has a history of resistance, and of fighting for its emancipation from the Church. For me, keeping my mouth shut about an ideology like this is the worst insult I could offer my ancestors.