HOW RAIF BADAWI GOT SAUDI ELITE SO ANGRY
SITE PROMOTED SECULARISM, FREE SPEECH AND TOOK JABS AT RELIGIOUS HARDLINERS
Canada became embroiled in its epic dispute with Saudi Arabia largely over the fate of one man: Imprisoned 34-year-old blogger Raif Badawi. The 34-year-old maintained a website, Free Saudi Liberals, that promoted secularism, free speech and took the occasional sarcastic jab at Saudi Arabia’s religious hardliners. Although benign by Canadian standards, for Saudi Arabia it was enough to hand Badawi a sentence of 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for the crime of “insulting Islam through electronic channels.” It’s also been enough for Saudi authorities to launch a full-blown diplomatic feud with Canada. Canada accepted Badawi’s wife Ensaf Haidar and three children as refugees in 2013, gave them citizenship last month and has consistently called for Badawi’s release. One of these calls, prompted by the arrest of Badawi’s sister Samar, sparked the current spat. The 2015 book 1000 Lashes is an English translation of many key posts from Free Saudi Liberals. Here is a brief summary of some of those writings.
‘I’D BE THE FIRST PERSON TO STAND AND FIGHT HAMAS’
If Hamas ever managed to conquer Israel, Badawi writes that he would be “first in line” to oppose their “culture of ignorance and death.” Badawi opposes Hamas not because it’s an enemy of Israel, but because its goal is a theocratic regime. Religion-based states, writes Badawi, have nothing to offer human civilization and serve only to “murder the souls of its people, killing them deep within while they are still alive and breathing.” He does not spare the theocratic regime that he calls home, writing that Saudi Arabia is “fighting a daily war” to impose “backward thinking.”
‘LET’S LASH SOME ASTRONOMERS’
This post, which is among Badawi’s most cited writings, satirically mocks Islamic clerics who criticized “stargazers” for causing people to question sharia law. “There seems to be a science called the Sharia Astronomy that I wasn’t aware of,” a sarcastic Badawi writes, adding “I call upon all the scientists in the world in all different fields to abandon their offices and their labs … and to immediately join the circles of knowledge headed by our glorious preachers.” The post even appears to have a subtle Star Trek reference: “You see, our preachers — may they live long and prosper — have proven they have the final word in everything.” The cruel irony of the piece is that Badawi, who would soon be sentenced to lashing, jokingly muses about how many lashes should be meted out to astronomers.
‘NO TO BUILDING A MOSQUE IN NEW YORK CITY’
In 2011, controversy arose surrounding the planned construction of Park51, a 13-storey Islamic community centre and mosque that was to be located two blocks from the former site of the World Trade Center. The project was soon denounced as the “Ground Zero Mosque,” with critics accusing it of being planned as a symbol of Islamic “triumph” for the September 11 attacks. Badawi comes out against the mosque, noting that Saudi Arabia already bans the construction of churches — and would probably be all the more reticent to build a church near a Christian attack of the scale of 9/11. “What pains me most, as a citizen of the country that exported those terrorists (whom I’m naturally dishonoured by), is the boldness of New York’s Muslims, who did not think about the thousands of people who died on that dark day and their families,” wrote Badawi. The post ends with praise for religious pluralism in the United States and condemns the official Saudi Arabian view of seeing non-Muslims as apostates. “Having this mentality in our society is destructive,” Badawi writes.
‘A WOMAN WORKING IN A PUBLIC SPACE IS EQUAL TO A MAN’
In April, Apple received assurances from the Saudi government that they could open offices in the kingdom without being prosecuted for gender-mixing. Saudi Arabia generally bans the mixing of unrelated men and women, including in the workplace. Badawi described hearing stories from his grandmother about Arab farming villages in which women freely worked alongside men. He also notes there is ample evidence of gender-mixing among the first followers of the Prophet Muhammed; history’s first Muslims did not pray in sex-segregated spaces or require face veils for their women.
‘LIBERALISM MEANS TO SIMPLY LIVE AND LET LIVE.’
In several posts Badawi takes pains to carefully explain the concept of liberalism to his readers, despite the word having a reputation in Saudi Arabia as an enemy of morality and religion. “It’s seen as blasphemy, disbelief, immorality — naked beaches and gay marriage,” he wrote. But as Badawi explains, liberalism merely refers to a society in which freedom of all views is respected. “It’s about mutual tolerance that is not ruled by indifference or disinterest,” he wrote. Badawi never directly criticizes religion and, in fact, quotes regularly from the Qur’an and from Islamic scholars. Nevertheless, in one essay on liberalism he writes that religion “has no role to play in human civil advancement.” Religious worship is about a “delicate spiritual relationship between a human and a creator,” and cannot be used to guide “manmade laws.”
‘WE SIMPLY CANNOT ALLOW A RETURN TO THIS STONE AGE DOGMA’
September 23 is Saudi National Day, the celebration of the country’s 1932 founding. Badawi used the date as an occasion to celebrate a Saudi Arabia that doesn’t technically exist: A diverse civil society in which all views are embraced. Nevertheless, Badawi maintains that his national pride for Saudi Arabia exists in spite of those with their “heads stuck in the Stone Age.”