Destroying Islamic Fundamentalism With Books

Ideas Beyond Borders is bringing ideas about pluralism, civil liberties, and critical thinking to hotbeds of Islamic extremism.

Nick Gillespie | 5.31.2022 3:22 PM

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Faisal Saeed Al Mutar and Melissa Chen are the outspoken, courageous co-founders of Ideas Beyond Borders (IBB), a nonprofit that translates books about pluralism, science, civil liberties, and critical thinking like John Stuart Mill's On Liberty and Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now into Arabic and distributes them for free as e-books throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. They've also translated thousands of Wikipedia pages on the same topics and made them available to an audience desperately interested in new ways of thinking about culture, politics, and ideas. Faisal left Iraq after extremists killed his brother and threatened his life, and Melissa was once a persona non grata in her native Singapore due to free speech activism.

Founded in 2017, IBB is also funding underground girls schools in Afghanistan, actively helping Afghans find refuge from the Taliban, and running a campaign against global censorship at endbannedbooks.org. Disclosure: I'm on the board of Ideas Beyond Borders.

This interview was taped live on Monday, May 2, 2022, as part of the Reason Speakeasy series, held monthly in New York City. Go here for podcast and video versions of past events.

Interview by Nick Gillespie; edited by Adam Czarnecki

NEXT: Tucker Carlson's Great Replacement Theory Is Spectacularly Wrong

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RabbiHarveyWeinstein 3 years ago

Just wait until the Muslims learn about futanari gender confirmation surgery in San Francisco. I'm sure they'll come around to accepting Western values.

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1. Don't look at me! 3 years ago
  
  And asssex . Don’t forget about the asssex.
  
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  1. RabbiHarveyWeinstein 3 years ago
    
    I forgot to also mention the murals and statues to Saint George Floyd of Minneapolis, the patron saint of pregnant women, opioid addicts, porn stars, and counterfeiters. Muslims are really, really supportive of idolatry!
    
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  2. Quo Usque Tandem 3 years ago
    
    They're actually pretty good with assex, in fact have made a name for themselves in that endeavor.
    
    Log in to Reply
2. n00bdragon 3 years ago
  
  Someone show him the map of porn consumption per capita by country. You'd be surprised. I think Pakistan was the highest in the world. They don't really go for futanari there. Much more into plain jane gay anal.
  
  Log in to Reply
3. The Encogitationer 3 years ago
  
  Aw, Harv, what's your bitch?
  
  Are you afraid that if Enlightenment values spread, you won't have a shot at Grand Rabbinate because Jews will learn that food doesn't need religious words mumbled over it?
  
  Are you scared that Jewish parents will discover that you don't have to cut up on Jewish boys for the shits and giggles of JHVH-1 or make them memorize jibberish at age 13 to make them into men?
  
  Will more Jews finally find out that God wasn't there in all their 2500+ years of persecution culmunating in The Holocaust?
  
  Is that's what's getting you down there, Bunkie?
  
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Stuck in California 3 years ago

And of course, this commercial repeats.

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1. Don't look at me! 3 years ago
  
  And again, would.
  (I’m talking about the chick)
  
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  1. Cal Cetín 3 years ago
    
    "She's the best thing between the covers since The Road to Serfdom."
    
    Log in to Reply
  2. The Encogitationer 3 years ago
    
    And I still Would Wood and Would Wood. A DP Threesome if they're game.
    
    Log in to Reply
2. Diane Reynolds (Paul.) 3 years ago
  
  And Melissa Chen is on the offensive against Woke. I wonder if Reason would talk to her about that.
  
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  1. Quo Usque Tandem 3 years ago
    
    I'm just not seeing a downside to this woman.
    
    And though I'm no biologist, I have safely concluded that she is indeed a woman.
    
    https://melissa.blog/about/
    
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    1. Stuck in California 3 years ago
      
      Melissa Chen is all right.
      
      It's the fact that Reason very obviously writes "articles" that are basically advertising that I'm poking at here. They tend to come in threes, though sometimes just two.
      
      At least they aren't doing all three in the same day this time.
      
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      1. Quo Usque Tandem 3 years ago
        
        "articles" that are basically advertising
        
        If not outright plugs
        
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        The Encogitationer 3 years ago
        
        They can both plug me. 🙂
        
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  2. The Encogitationer 3 years ago
    
    No, she and Faisal should talk sense to Reason. 🙂
    
    Log in to Reply
mad.casual 3 years ago

How To Destroy Islamic Fundamentalism With Books - An Instructional Guide

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1. The Encogitationer 3 years ago
  
  I tried to see the title Jason Bourne was using, but they were moving too fast to even stop the screen. 🙂
  
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Quo Usque Tandem 3 years ago

Next up the Reason office gets...je suis Charlie Hebdo.

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1. The Encogitationer 3 years ago
  
  IIRC, in all fairless, Reason, to it's credit, was supportive of the "Draw Mohammed" contest.
  
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Diane Reynolds (Paul.) 3 years ago

Melissa Chen can throw a punch, Reason. Maybe you could hire her.

The lessons of the past two years for me was the complete and utter destruction of institutional credibility and the politicization of truth itself, by the very institutions (media) tasked to uncover it. My sense of the world broke in a way that hasn't recovered (and won't).

And more:

Melissa Chen
@MsMelChen
·
May 24
Great panel on the vapidity of ESG moderated by
@joshrogin
at #OFF2022.

@Perth_Tolle
did not mince her words:

“ESG criteria excludes companies involved in firearms, tobacco, alcohol, etc. but abetting actual genocide? Totally okay”

She's on point. Maybe reason can sprinkle some of this type of commentary between food trucks and weed.

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1. Diane Reynolds (Paul.) 3 years ago
  
  And more:
  
  At the All-In Summit, Elon spoke glowingly about expanding Twitter’s features to what WeChat offers - pay bills, hail rides, gov ID, etc.
  
  What’s with the tech utopian desire to build things with a single point of failure and facilitating the inexorable march toward dystopia?
  
  Log in to Reply
  1. mad.casual 3 years ago
    
    What’s with the tech utopian desire to build things with a single point of failure and facilitating the inexorable march toward dystopia?
    
    Damn.
    
    Log in to Reply
  2. JesseAz 3 years ago
    
    makes it so government only has to focus on one industry.
    
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2. Nardz 3 years ago
  
  Melissa Chen is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY out of Reason's league.
  
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  1. The Encogitationer 3 years ago
    
    And yoursm Pretty sure she w9uodn't approve of Putin's censorship and repression either.
    
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    1. The Encogitationer 3 years ago
      
      Correction: Yours too. Pretty sure she wouldn't approve of Putin's censorship and repression either.
      
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3. JesseAz 3 years ago
  
  ESGs performed below average the last year or so.
  
  Amazing what happens when you form a business to not make goods, but to pander to the left.
  
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4. R Mac 3 years ago
  
  Yeah, but I bet she’s not invited to any of the best cocktail parties.
  
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  1. The Encogitationer 3 years ago
    
    I'll invite her and Feisal to my cocktail parties. 🙂
    
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Adans smith 3 years ago

People have been waiting on the Muslim enlightenment for decades. The problem is that in many of these countries the majority are poor and uneducated, except in one book written by a power hungry warlord with delusions of sainthood.

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1. Cal Cetín 3 years ago
  
  Uneducated except for the terrorists with engineering degrees.
  
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  1. Cal Cetín 3 years ago
    
    And as for the late Osama Bin Laden (not poor, by the way):
    
    "The list of books and other publications seized by US Navy Seals during the May 2011 raid in which the al–Qaida leader was killed reveal an eclectic range of reading material including works by Noam Chomsky, Yale history professor Paul Kennedy, and journalist Bob Woodward, as well as books suggesting that senior US officials deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks to succeed."
    
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/20/osama-bin-laden-library-noam-chomsky-bob-woodward
    
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2. Cal Cetín 3 years ago
  
  The Muslim states had an enlightenment - we're still being reminded of it centuries later.
  
  They had a chance of policy.
  
  To be fair, if they changed in one direction, they can change back again.
  
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  1. The Encogitationer 3 years ago
    
    Ackshually, the much-vaunted "Islamic Golden Age" had nothing to do with the religion, but more with the fact that their two major cities besides Mecca and Medina were Baghdad and Cordoba, both of which were hub cities for intersection of many cultures and ideas.
    
    Also, the greatest polymath minds of Islamic society, such Abu Sina, Averroes, Al-Razr, Omar Khayaam, and Ibn Warraq were not Muslims, but freethinkers who were frequently condemned for their rejection of Islamic superstition and dogmatism.
    
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3. Brandybuck 3 years ago
  
  Didn't used to be that way. Afghanistan in the 50s was a modern state in comparison to today. What happened was not Islam, what happened is that one sect of Islam took over. And then infected several other sects. It's not just fundamentalism, as it's a very fractious religion run at the local level without any formal hierarchy. So fundamentalist Iran is very different from fundamentalist Saudi Arabia. But the later has intellectual clout because everyone is supposed to pilgrimage there, and so it's export of Wahabism took hold. And THAT is the Islam nation we're most closely allied with. No wonder it's a shit show.
  
  The core issue is not the religion, it's the union of church and state. It took the Christian West a few centuries to achieve this, and some places still trying to go back. But Islam in the Middle East and Asia has yet to get there. Is it the religion itself? In most part yes, because it's founder erected a state and its text ties religion to the state. It's a tough nut to crack, but it's not at all impossible. Just not going to happen over night. It will take a few decades at best.
  
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4. The Encogitationer 3 years ago
  
  According to a report from the United Nations on Arab Human Development, many are illiterate at even Al Qu'ran, Al-Haddith, and Al-Sunnah. And France has translated more foreign texts in one year than Saudi Arabia has translated in 1000 years.
  
  When your greatest ally the UN teols you that you suck, it's time for some serious introspection.
  
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Dillinger 3 years ago

buena. truth is light.

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Earth-based Human Skeptic 3 years ago

Could they translate the books into progressive-ese and bring them to American fundamentalist strongholds on the east and west coasts?

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Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland 3 years ago

Is this project to destroy Islamic fundamentalism also aimed at Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, and any other religious fundamentalism?

Or does this effort focus on one flavor of old-timey superstition and issue a pass to the others?

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1. Cal Cetín 3 years ago
  
  It affects any flavor which is explosive.
  
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2. The Encogitationer 3 years ago
  
  Skeptics tend to rail most against the religion with which they are most familiar and/or from whence they escaped, but I say railing against one is ultimately railing against all of them.
  
  And that would include whatever religion yours is too.
  
  Carry On, Clinger! *Flourishes cape.*
  
  By the byez I found some lost footage of you, Joe Friday, MollyGodiva, and ChemJeff, though, really, it could be a some others too:
  
  Banana Splits Opening
  https://youtu.be/YjKnRV4Dgag
  
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NOYB2 3 years ago

Destroying Islamic Fundamentalism With Books

So you are saying that "libertarians" won't rest until every culture and society that deviates from progressive western values has been "destroyed".

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1. The Encogitationer 3 years ago
  
  Ackshually, Western Civilization deviated from Religionism first, not vice-versa.
  
  And if you want to get really pedantic, Judaism and Christianity aren't Western Religions, but Eastern Religions believed and practiced by Western people.
  
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Hank Ferrous 3 years ago

Three times for this piece. Can I get four? Five? Chen is smart as fuck, but I can just go to her site.

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JAQO 3 years ago

Islam=inlibration=impossibility of change

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dollops 3 years ago

There is no "destroying Islamic fundamentalism" because Muhammad's position as demi-god is unassailable. The fundamentals of Islam are based on his teachings and behavior as "Allah's prophet"; any "destroying" of those fundamentals is apostasy.

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Destroying Islamic Fundamentalism With Books

Ideas Beyond Borders is bringing ideas about pluralism, civil liberties, and critical thinking to hotbeds of Islamic extremism.

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