Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).

Here we talk about the British and the Americans, and the American Revolutionary War.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: One of the groups of people who received more universalized rights as persons within the United States apart from the aristocratic, white, wealthy, slave-owning males were white women. What were some of the firmaments of women’s anger at the injustices? Who were some of the original movers of this anger into positive action and progressive change? How has women’s anger been a catalytic force for women’s self-empowerment? Also, how has women’s anger been an unacknowledged, potentially, force for other positive movements for greater societal provision of equal rights and treatment to all constituents of the United States of America?

Dr. Herb Silverman: White women certainly had more rights than black slaves, but I don’t think women in general have ever been privileged. There are even some parallels between how women and enslaved people were treated. Both were expected to be passive, cooperative, and obedient to their master-husbands.

Next to my wife Sharon, my favorite women are Sarah and Angelina Grimké, sisters from Charleston, South Carolina, who lived in the 18^th century and deserve to be better known than they are. Their father, Judge John Grimké, was a strong advocate of slavery and of the subordination of women. He had hundreds of slaves, and served as chief judge of the South Carolina Supreme Court. Though raised with slaves, the Grimké sisters grew to despise slavery after witnessing its cruel effects at a young age.

In 1836 Angelina wrote her Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, imploring white southern women to embrace the antislavery cause. She said, “I know you do not make the laws, but I also know that you are the wives and mothers, the sisters and daughters of those who do; and if you really suppose you can do nothing to overthrow slavery, you are greatly mistaken.” Her writing drew the ire of many southerners. By the late 1830s, Sarah and Angelina were known not only as abolitionists but also as proponents of women’s rights.

The Grimké sisters left the South in the 1820s and moved to Philadelphia, where I was born, and became Quakers. At a time when it was not considered respectable (even in the North) for women to speak before mixed audiences of men and women, Sarah and Angelina boldly spoke out against slavery at public meetings. Some male abolitionists, like Frederick Douglass, supported the right of women to speak and participate equally with men in antislavery activities.  

The Grimkés grew up in a Charleston house built in 1789, three blocks away from where I now live. In 2015, the Friends of the Library at the College of Charleston (where I was a math professor) unveiled a much-deserved historical marker outside the Grimké home.

The Grimké sisters were good friends with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an abolitionist and a leading figure of the early women’s rights movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, parallels the American Declaration of Independence, but with women included. It asserts that both men and women are endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It explains how women are oppressed by the government and a patriarchal society. Stanton calls for women’s suffrage as well as participation and representation in the government. She also refers to women’s lack of property rights, and inequality in divorce law, education, and employment opportunities. The document insists that women be full citizens, granted all the rights and privileges that are granted to men. The Seneca Falls Convention marked the start of the women’s rights movement in the United States.

Suffragette Susan B. Anthony was a good friend and collaborator with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. However, even though Anthony was an agnostic, she didn’t like Stanton’s open criticism of religion because she feared it would lose supporters for the suffragette movement. In particular, Anthony was displeased with Stanton’s publication of The Woman’s Bible, which was justifiably critical of religion. Stanton said, “The Bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the emancipation of women,” and “Surely the immutable laws of the universe can teach more impressive lessons than the holy books of all the religions on earth.” Stanton also said, ‘I have endeavored to dissipate religious superstitions from the minds of women, and base their faith on science and reason, where I found for myself at last that peace and comfort I could never find in the Bible and the church.”

After a 72-year battle for women ‘s suffrage, women finally got the vote in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Women fighting for equality during the early part of the twentieth century focused on political equality. Yet to come were issues like workplace inequality, gender pay gap, sexual harassment, violence against women, and #MeToo.

Wifehood and motherhood are no longer regarded as women’s most significant professions. Women now have more educational opportunities than ever before. Nurse and teacher (and maybe Catholic nun, if you consider this a profession) used to be pretty much the only professional positions open to women. In 1900, women earned only19 percent of bachelor’s degrees. Since 1980, women have surpassed men in the number of bachelor’s degrees conferred annually in the United States.

Regarding the question of women’s anger, women have been socialized to suppress anger and even question whether their anger is justified. A case can be made that getting angry might first be necessary before being motivated to work for change. People don’t change the world by being apathetic; they do it by getting angry and refusing to take injustice any more. Anger can be used constructively by women (and men) to fight intolerance and discrimination. Recently, female anger at Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential win spurred historic numbers of women to run for public office in 2018 and today.

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.

Photo by Julia Caesar on Unsplash

‘Ayaz Nizami’ is a part of a hashtag.#FreeAyazNizami, others, against him, posted a hashtag #HangAyazNizami, i.e., calls for the hanging of a public human rights activist., as reported in 2017.

He is the Vice President of Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan. He was placed in an anti-terrorism cell. ‘Nizami’ is an ex-Muslim and has been punished for organizing as one in Pakistan.

This case and its concomitant issues need more coverage and wider activism, as this has been over two years ongoing in terms of imprisonment of him. Obviously, the alias name was for self-protection, as with others who utilize fake names in order to hide identity for safety and livelihood.

As previously reported, “Who is Ayaz, though? He is a religious scholar and ex-Muslim. He pursued religious training after standard, mainstream education. He was admitted to an Islamic studies school. He began to doubt the authenticity of the claims of his faith at the time. I suspect that not being an easy thing to undergo or endure, especially being part of an orthodox religious family. Even with the doubts, he accomplished accreditation in the Islamic studies. He was not only a religious scholar in general, but an Islamic scholar in particular.”

This was part of a larger wave, and an ongoing one, of charges against bloggers and writers. ‘Nizami’ has expertise in Tafseer and the principles of it. Tafseer is the tradition of providing explanations for the purportedly holy Quran. He has an expertise in the Hadith and its principles. It is the words, actions, and implicit approvals of Muhammad. 

Furthermore, ‘Nizami’ holds expertise in Fiqh and its principles, as well as philosophy and logic, and the Arabic language. Fiqh is the Islamic Jurisprudence. He has a wide range of expertise and knowledge on the religion, on Islam, and can be a powerful ally in the world of those who may wish to leave the religion. The Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan is the organization of Fauzia Ilyas and ‘Ayaz Nizami.’

Mr. Nizami stated the religious creations seen here. They are not from above, the divine, another transcendent realm, or an otherworldly place that can engrave the messages of the Theity upon the hearts and minds of the prophets.

No, “[They are] a mere creation of the human brain and are a bi-product of culture and civilisations in the world especially the Middle East,” Mr. Nizami said, where he wants to “educate and enlighten his fellow countrymen and share his findings with them.”

This mission can be a basis for human rights activism and secularization of the nation-state in the midst of a troublesome setup. Problem: his communication, with me — and presumably others, went dark. 

As noted at the time:

It seemed suspicious. The common knowledge in the educated secular community is bloggers with critiques of religion or religious patriarchs, or practices, can be killed, given lashings, or stigmatised and ostracised in their communities.

So the answer to the latter two questions: no, and no. Answer to the former query: as far as I can tell, he existed as a non-believer, especially an ex-Muslim, with self-confidence rather than acculturated diffidence and spoke out on religion and Islam, and with highly educated, scholarly authority in the relevant subject matter. It was taken as terrorism and blasphemy.

Whether or not the statements are true or not, and whether or not you’re religious or not — and especially if you’re religious take the parable of the hypocrite and the Golden Rule into account, ask, “Should someone be imprisoned on blasphemy or terrorism charges — even threatened with a hashtag hanging campaign (#HangAyazNizami) based on belief, in particular non-belief, in the public arena?”

There were comments with the #HangAyazNizami hashtag on social media with calls for hanging him in a variety of forms. Some of these went alongisde a claim of “fuck with freedom of speech” from Sardar Waqar, an admission with “call us terrorist or extremist or whatever by Daniyal Ahmed, that first “he must be drag in the streets” prior to the proposed justice of hanging by Nida Ahmed, and so on.

These claims of violence over doubts and founding a non-religious organization — one for atheists and agnostics — seems fundamentally unjust, unfair, and the root of the attitudes of religious privileges within societies to openly call for violence with no reprisals in kind other than requests for respect for freedom of expression and reversal of arbitrary imprisonment.

I think the original query from over two years ago still stands:

At root, some subset of Pakistani Muslims are offended, and some non-Muslims. But does this justify the sentiments and the very real consequences on the life of Mr. Nizami? No, and take the footnote about the hypocrite and the Golden Rule into account, I get it.

But if in his situation, if something you did was that offensive, would others be justified in imprisoning or threatening to hang you? I feel offence at the offence around Mr. Nizami. Does this justify blasphemy charges and imprisonment, and public threats of hanging? No, and I would not condone it, as I do not condone the same for the offence — which from that perspective, I can feel sympathy for — felt by some Pakistani Muslims, and others.

These are environments for cyber-dissidents. These are the lives some will live. Some will be killed. Others imprisoned for years or even life. Still others, they will not see the light of day due to mob justice, as we found in some of the cases of the Bangladeshi bloggers. This is the world in which the Internet provides a space for freedom of expression and a furtherance of the destruction and emaciation of the lives and livelihoods, respectively, of those in difficult circumstances. Lives of the arbitrary precarity of health and wellbeing. This can be stopped. It has to start one at a time, to show how these cases can pass, how the authoritarian efforts and regimes are, in fact, fragile, and, therefore, can be overcome.

This is why ‘Ayaz Nizami’ deserves a whole lot more attention now and into the future until he is released.

Photo by Sameer Akhtari on Unsplash