By MARYAM NAMAZIE - FREETHOUGHT BLOGS - MARYAM NAMAZIE
Added: Thu, 05 Jul 2012 12:04:29 UTC

In a letter to the editor in the latest edition of the National Secular Society’s very excellent Newsline, Raymond Carlise writes:

I have considered Edward Conduit’s appeal to sign the petition in defence of the Indonesian atheist who has been jailed for saying there is no God, but have concluded that I cannot sign [the] Avaaz petition for Alex.
There may well be no God for Alex, as for you or for me. With the Indonesians however it’s evidently a different matter. The limits of subjectivity and of objectivity have to be recognized.

Really?

Hmm. But isn’t Alex also an Indonesian? What about his culture and opinion? Or does that not count?

This is the same racist cultural relativism that sees the ‘other’ as one and the same with the state and established religious institutions that oppresses them and ignores and justifies violations of rights and freedoms at the expense of countless dissenters such as Alex.

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TAGGED: ACTIVISM, HUMAN RIGHTS