HumanistLife

Discussing atheism in highly religious countries

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With the news replete with stories of humanists and freethinkers killed and persecuted for ‘blasphemy’ around the world, Alex Sinclair-Lack asks ‘How candid can I be about my beliefs’?

Amman’s Citadel in Jordan. Photo by Alex Sinclair-Lack.

All humanists must grapple with the question of when it is appropriate to tell people that you don’t believe in their god, and when, if ever, you might choose to hide your beliefs for fear of causing offence. Across the atheist spectrum there is strong disagreement about how to approach these issues. At one extreme, there are those who keep their beliefs completely hidden. At the other, we have keyboard warriors with an uncanny ability to turn the YouTube comment sections of pop videos and cookery guides into pseudo-theological, venomous outpourings about the failings of the Catholic Church. Frankly, I have a little sympathy for both. However, the dilemma I describe becomes more apparent and important in highly religious countries. During a six-month stay in Amman, Jordan, I discovered my own answer to the question.

Having found comfort and confidence in
shared values of compassion. I made the conscious
decision to tell people of my lack of faith.

As a liberal and a humanist, I had reservations about moving to a Middle Eastern country. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Jordan does not share many of the intolerances of the surrounding nations. In fact, it blows many perceptions of the region out of the water. Surrounded by Iraq, Israel, Syria and Saudi Arabia; Jordan has remained peaceful, safe, and welcoming. While the UK Parliament pats itself on the back for having voted to let in a couple of hundred child refugees, Jordan was taking them in by the million. It is worth noting that King Abdullah II does this in spite of a devastating water shortage because he considers it Jordan’s moral duty to help refugees regardless of nationality and religion.

Having found comfort and confidence in shared values of compassion, I made the conscious decision to tell people of my lack of faith. At first to Jordanian friends, and then to colleagues, and eventually to inquiring strangers. The inquiry comes up more often than you might expect. Reactions ranged from sheer horror, to intrigue, to nonchalance. My personal favourite occurred during filming for an unfinished pet project, a documentary short: Syrian Santa. It was centred on a young Muslim refugee working as Father Christmas in a mall, who when I asked him if my non-belief offended him, replied: ‘Oh please, all of my friends are atheists!’

A multi-faith mural in Jordan. Photo by Alex Sinclair-Lack.

Questions usually followed, and I was happy to answer. Each Q&A session reassured me that these conversations were valuable. This is not because I had any intention of ‘proselytising’ or ‘converting’ or whatever the non-religious equivalent is (de-proselytising, perhaps). Any attempts to convert Muslims or hurt ‘Muslim feelings’ would have landed me a three-year prison sentence. But far more importantly, because it is not my business as a guest of the country to even be considering such an act. I have as little desire to proselytise as I do to be proselytised. My interest lies in conversation not conversion.

Any discussions of faith should be treated with sensitivity and cultural awareness, otherwise they are not only disrespectful and neo-colonial, but counter-productive. I will never preach my beliefs, but I will happily engage with those who are willing. When my admission was met with a grimace, I would follow up with, ‘I realise that atheists do not have a good reputation, but I welcome any questions about my beliefs, if you are interested’.

Reasonable people from all belief systems are keen to understand how non-believers come to ethical decisions and agree that discussion is valuable

The very act of having a friendly conversation…
goes a long way to combating prejudice.

Firstly, the discussion counters widespread misconceptions about what it means to be an atheist. For most people, I was the first openly atheistic person they had encountered. Although my ex-partner might disagree, I like to think that I don’t match up to the idea of an atheist as a nihilistic, ethically reprehensible sinner with a black hole where my heart is meant to be. The very act of having a friendly conversation with a well-meaning, open, and non-pushy non-believer goes a long way to combating prejudice.

Secondly, just by opening a dialogue you create a safe space for other people to explore their own doubt or scepticism, but who are unlikely to have had the same freedoms you have had. This is more likely than you might think. According to a 2012 WIN/Gallup poll, 18% of people in the Arab world consider themselves ‘not a religious person’. That is the equivalent of 75 million people. The percentage rises to as high as 33% in Lebanon and perhaps even more surprisingly, 19% in Saudi Arabia. Even if you do not meet these people directly, you may indirectly inspire tolerance towards them. And there is a reasonable chance you will have enough influence on someone to make them consider before jumping to harsh judgement and disownment. Atheists and agnostics within highly religious countries have one hell of a trail to blaze. What I am advocating is recognising your privilege and using it to help their journey run a little smoother.

I’m not supporting walking around the holy land with an ‘I love Richard Dawkins’ t-shirt. I only had this conversation when I was somewhat confident that I was safe. I would not be so brave as to openly discuss it in Bangladesh or Saudi Arabia, where the price of standing up for non-belief has been such a tragic one. In at least thirteen countries, atheism is punishable by death. And in these countries, the bravery and dangers faced by activists fighting to protect their right to non-belief is not to be compared with anything I will ever encounter. Nor would I be naive enough to claim that everyone has the luxury to speak so openly about non-belief. But it is recognition of that privilege that motivates me. I have been lucky enough to grow up in a society where I am free from these dangers; most people are not.

Use your wits and your intuition, when you feel unsafe, keep your views to yourself. Check the Freedom of Thought Report before you visit any religious country and only do what you feel comfortable with. Given an opportunity, atheists who live with the privilege of safety have a responsibility to detoxify the debate for those that don’t. For me, it is a risk worth taking. Some of my most humbling experiences were when Jordanian people were telling me that I had helped them combat their prejudices. All humanists have a small part to play.

Alex Sinclair-Lack is a writer with an appetite for travel. You can follow his writing and his exploits on Twitter at @alexsinclair.

No, the European Court of Justice has not banned headscarves in the workplace

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Contrary to what many newspapers reported, the ECJ did not permit or issue a ‘Muslim headscarf ban’

Headline after headline after headline yesterday, from across the political spectrum, erroneously reported that the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the top court of the European Union, has ruled that bans on Muslim headscarves in the workplace can be legal. But this is not accurate and such headlines risk causing a huge amount of acrimony if, for example, employers try to bring in such bans when in fact they don’t have the law on their side.

To be fair to the journalists who wrote all the headlines, the ECJ press release on the matter is very confused. It starts off by simply saying ‘An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination’. But it doesn’t define anywhere what direct discrimination means, and doesn’t talk about its sibling, indirect discrimination, until well into page two – and when it does, it’s fairly muddled in the language it uses. We at the British Humanist Association had to read it through about three or four times before we got our heads round it.

So, let’s try and clear things up a bit. Essentially in equality and human rights law there are two types of discrimination. Direct discrimination, as it relates to religion or non-religious beliefs, is where you have a policy that targets someone because of their religion or belief.

Indirect discrimination is where you have a policy that does not target someone because of their religion or belief per se, but it nonetheless puts individuals of particular religions or beliefs at a disadvantage, when compared to those of other religions or beliefs.

Yesterday’s ruling actually focussed on two different cases – one from Belgium and one from France. In both cases, the employer had a policy of not allowing employees to wear religious dress or symbols. This led to two Muslim employees wearing the headscarf to be fired. They then took the cases through the domestic courts and finally up to the European court.

Neither employer’s policy was deemed to target Muslims specifically, so it was not found to be direct discrimination. That seems to me to be correct.

However, indirect discrimination is not always unlawful. It can in fact be lawful where the discriminatory requirement can be said to be a ‘genuine and determining occupational requirement, provided that the objective is legitimate and the requirement is proportionate.’

A clear example of this is a case heard at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in 2013, involving a nurse called Shirley Chaplin. She was wearing a cross around her neck, and her NHS Trust deemed that this posed a risk to her and patients’ safety in case ‘a disturbed patient might seize and pull the chain, thereby injuring herself or the applicant, or that the cross might swing forward and could, for example, come into contact with an open wound.’ Her Trust asked her to wear the cross on a pin instead. She refused and took a human rights case. She lost the case because it was found that her employer’s request that she wear the cross on a pin instead of a chain was a proportionate means of pursuing the legitimate objective of patient safety.

On the other hand, a case where an employer was found to have got it wrong was the case of Nadia Eweida, which was also determined at the ECtHR in 2013. She also wanted to wear a cross round her neck, and her employer, British Airways, said that this went against their uniform policy. This was deemed not to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim and so her claim of indirect discrimination was successful.

In yesterday’s two cases the ECJ made no ruling as to indirect discrimination. It set out the tests by which the indirect discrimination could possibly be lawful. This included the problematic concept that it might be okay to require no religious symbols in customer-facing staff, which seems to me to go further than the ECtHR ruling with Eweida did (and, Darren Newman has argued, is less likely to be seen by European courts as okay in a UK than in a French/Belgian laïcité framework). But it did not rule on the matter. Instead it remitted the question of legality back to the Belgian and French courts to decide, and merely speculated about possibilities of moving staff to different roles.

These two cases were decided under the European Employment Directive, hence they went to the European Court of Justice, whereas the two cases from 2013 were decided under the European Convention on Human Rights and hence they went to the European Court of Human Rights. But the indirect discrimination law is essentially the same in both sets of courts. So I find it hard to see how, given the 2013 decisions, the Belgian and French courts will be able to do anything but uphold the indirect discrimination claim (or if they do, how, if it then goes back to the ECJ, it will be able to do anything but likewise).

And even if the eventual ruling is against a claim of indirect discrimination, the ECJ remains just one of two legal avenues open to these two employees – they can also take an ECtHR claim. And I can’t see how the ECtHR can rule in a different way here to how it did in the Eweida case.

Headlines saying the ECJ has allowed employers to ban headscarves are premature at best and completely wrong at worst.