Richard Dawkins speaks like a colonial relic
resurrected from the past, and naturally he is out of touch with the current
society; he speaks pejoratively about Muslims that seems to be coloured by his
obsession with Darwin’s race-centric evolution theory. His recent jibe on tweeter about the less
evolved Muslims having less Nobel Prize than Trinity College went viral, and it
is part of his catalogue of smears against the voiceless Muslim community. For
years, believers from all sections of society have tolerated his unrestrained arrogance
in propagating atheist dogmas, as if he had witnessed the creation of the
universe.
Why is the man so impatient? Nobody in this world is
contesting the certainty of death. And soon Dawkins will have his answer regarding
afterlife, which in turn will answer the questions about the creation and
purpose of life on earth. I pray that it is sooner for his sake - he seems
unsettled, and from the believers’ perspective, this is expected, because
atheists do not really have full conviction that life is a coincidence, a product
of evolution, and it simply ends here. Our
intelligence has propelled us to ask why we exist, and our observation of life
and the universe clearly tells us nothing happens by chance, for example
leaving building materials in a field will not result in the creation of a
building by chance. Hence, there is always a lingering doubt in the back of
the atheist’s mind; otherwise, they would exhibit more serenity than believers,
who are agitated by the notions of accountability in the hereafter. It is this deep uncertainty that drives the
likes of Dawkins to knock on our door and push to debate the issues, because it
is fundamentally about his insecurity.
The more we learn about the universe, the more we
should acknowledge the magnitude of our ignorance; instead an arrogant position
is taken, as if these atheists can recreate the universe. Their uncertainty
could be laid to rest, if some atheists came back from the dead to verify the
answers to the meaning of life and if death is the final destination. In contrast, our Imams and learned scholars
are not behaving in the same way, because their conviction actually satisfies
their mind and the heart. At most they will gently invite non-believers to
embrace Islam, not get fanatical about this process, and constantly seek
confrontation. The same applies to devout Jews and Christians; let us ignore
the exceptions, there will always be exceptions like the crazy preachers and
missionaries on TV.
Richard Dawkins as one of the leaders of the Atheist trend is trying to emulate a Prophet, and guide humanity to his way of thinking, and so far he has only manage to conjure up a handful of followers. Fanatical atheists like Dawkins need to realise, despite all their envious jibes, it is the followers of Muhammad that have passed the test of time and continue to grow, whilst minions like Dawkins will vanish like dusts with his handful of followers.
As an academic one would expect him to rise above
bigotry, yet he seems to have jumped into bed with the low level racist
hooligans of the far right, joining the anti-Muslim tirades. His pejorative
description of the Muslim women’s dress code as a bin liner, puts him in bar
with the likes of Tommy Robinson, Pam Gellar and Melanie Phillips. He
ironically describes Islam using the religious term evil. What is evil in the
book of atheists? Like the superficial racist
far-right, Dawkins implicitly makes parallels between Mein Kampf and the Quran
(a book he has not read and studied), what an irony, because it is the far
right takes inspiration from Hitler. Dawkins also endorses the works of another
far right anti-Muslim bigot, Geert Wilders - I see the parallels between
Dawkins and the likes of racist colonialists like Cecil Rhodes. His mindset seems to reflect the ideas and
values of that time.
It
was during the colonial times of Cecil Rhodes that European
nations grew wealthy through a combination of piracy, slavery and theft
(imperialism), coupled with intellectual and scientific advancements
(Industrial revolution), all used to subjugate the conquered nations; this
position intoxicated the ruling class so much, they produced academic
‘theories’ that put the white men at the apex of the human chain, they called
it ‘evolution’. One cannot deny the terrible consequence from such theories which
gave rise to corollary ideas of racial purity and eugenics to justify
systematic genocide. The fate was terrible for much of the indigenous peoples,
the Aboriginals in Australia, the blacks in Africa, Indians in Asia were
considered inferior human race, lower in the evolution chain, terms like savage
races, and advanced animals were used to describe them. Even today they cite the book of Darwin “The Origins
of Species” but not its full title “The Origin of Species or the Preservation of
Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”.
Britain has moved from a colonial nation to a
multicultural society; it accommodates people of various religious and racial
background; Mo Farah, Amir Khan, Syeeda Warsi, Andy Murray, Sadiq Khan, David
Cameron are all part of the same British Rainbow. It seems Richard Dawkins and his far right
companions and allies are struggling to fit in.
Yamin Zakaria (yamin@radicalviews.org)
Published 17/08/2013
London, UK
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