WHY COME TO THE WEST IF YOU RESENT THE FREEDOM THAT MADE YOUR LIFE HERE POSSIBLE?
I have to ask.
How do you live in a free society, enjoy everything that freedom gives you, and then defend movements that would take it away from other people?
And how do a big parts of the left end up cheering them on?
The same people who can lecture everyone else for hours about women’s rights, oppression, and the right to be yourself suddenly become very careful when religious control enters the conversation.
Now we need context.
Fine. Give me the context. Then answer the question: Does the woman get to decide for herself?
Can she choose her partner? Leave him? Take off her hijab? Leave her religion? Speak her mind without getting permission from her family or a religious authority?
Why does the answer get so complicated when the question is so simple?
If a Christian preacher wants to control women’s bodies or gay people’s lives, you’ve got the megaphone ready. Good. Keep it on when an Islamist wants the same thing.
The rot starts when being on the “right side” becomes a free pass. When someone’s victims become inconvenient. When a woman speaking about religious coercion gets interrogated more aggressively than the people coercing her.
Listen to yourselves.
You want to give the oppressed a voice. Can you handle what they have to say when it makes your allies look bad?
And to the Islamists living in free societies while advocating religious control: What exactly is the plan?
You want the freedom to preach, protest, organize, and criticize the West all day long.
What happens when someone criticizes you?
What happens when your daughter leaves the faith? When your son refuses to follow it? Do they still have the freedom you demand for yourselves, or does it end at your front door?
Anyone can demand rights for themselves. Even a dictator can manage that.
The question is whether you accept another person’s right to say no to you.
And to those who came here from societies shaped by religious coercion or political repression, yet still defend that same control:
Why?
Why leave, then try to recreate the conditions you left behind?
If freedom gave you and your children better opportunities, why would you support denying it to someone else’s children?
A woman who wants to live freely does not owe you obedience. Your children have minds and consciences of their own. Religious conviction does not give anyone ownership of another human being.
Plenty of people came to the West precisely to escape that control. They know what it costs. They have lived with the consequences that comfortable Western activists discuss like an interesting theory.
Imagine fighting your way out, only to have someone who has never faced those restrictions explain why you should be more understanding of the people who imposed them.
That takes some nerve. And a staggering amount of arrogance.
Of course you can criticize the West. I do it myself. There is plenty to criticize.
But you also have to answer for what you support. What would you put in its place? Who gets to speak? Who gets to leave? Who gets to decide how women live?
Calling the person asking those questions a racist answers none of them.
Neither does spreading rumors about her, mocking her appearance, or inventing stories about her.
If your response to a woman criticizing religious control is to call her names, you have just demonstrated exactly how you treat a woman who refuses to fall in line.
And if you sit there liking it, sharing it, and laughing along, spare me the lecture about respect.
You helped do it.
That is what makes this culture so toxic. People convince themselves their cause is so righteous that their own behavior no longer needs examining. Cruelty becomes acceptable. Lies become useful. Anyone who objects becomes the next target.
Then they congratulate each other on their compassion.
The left need to explain how they ended up making excuses for people whose views on women, gay people, and religious freedom they should be confronting.
Being against oppression requires you to recognize it among your allies. Especially there. Condemning your opponents costs you nothing.
And Islamists need to understand that freedom of religion includes the freedom to reject religion. Including theirs. Other people do not need their approval to live.
I do not expect everyone to agree with me. I do expect an honest answer:
Do you support freedom for the woman who refuses you? The former Muslim who openly disagrees with you? The Jew who refuses to hide who he is?
Will you defend their rights when your own crowd turns on them?
Because if people have to obey you to deserve their freedom, stop calling yourselves champions of it.
You want control.
And I will keep saying it.