Sana Saleem Quotes

Where did Islamic radicalism grow in the past years? It grew under dictatorships.

Neo-Islam's attempt at destroying individual freedoms is as much a threat to Islam as the Inquisition was to Christianity.

Dissidents are despicable parasites

Growing up in Pakistan in the 1980s, I lived in the shadow of a tyrannical state.

Once you permit those who are convinced of their own superior rightness to censor and silence and suppress those who hold contrary opinions, just at that moment the citadel has been surrendered.

Islam has been used in some countries, for instance Sudan, as a means for suppression and the installation of autocratic regimes. This, coupled with the censorship of moderate Muslim voices and increasing state patronage of religious scholars, has led to the propagation of a dogmatic form of divisive Islamic extremism, a form that rejects democracy, human rights, and good governance as devices of Western imperialism.

There are men—now in power in this country—who do not respect dissent, who cannot cope with turmoil, and who believe that the people of America are ready to support repression so long as it is done with a quiet voice and a business suit.

With the fundamentalist Islamic fanatics of today, there is no dialogue possible either, because for them all others are “infidel dogs”. As soon as the Other becomes a wrongdoer or an infidel, dialogue becomes impossible.

Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas.

Our ideals are under the constant threat of extremism, whether in the form of radical Muslim groups or the emergence of other elements seeking to deny the rights and freedoms of others.

The fundamentalists are increasing. People, afraid to oppose those fundamentalists, shut their mouths. It is really very difficult to make people move against a sensitive issue like religion, which is the source of fundamentalism.

A real totalitarianism is at work in the world and wants to impose its views not only on Arab Muslims, but on the West. The same way that they veil women, Islamic radicals want to veil cartoons in the press.

The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us.

A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.

Fundamentalism, as practiced by the Taliban, is the enemy of real thought, and religion too.

Fundamentalists are not friends of democracy. And that includes your fundamentalists in the United States.

Not to mention the fact that of course terrorists hate freedom. I think they do hate. But believe me, I don't think they sit there abstractly hating freedom.

The truth is our country, our people, our liberties, and our way of life are under attack by radical Islamic terrorists who kill and destroy in the name of religion.

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.

Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.

The terrorists whatever slogans they use have nothing in common with Islam.

The struggle of democratic secularism, religious tolerance, individual freedom and feminism against authoritarian patriarchal religion, culture and morality is going on all over the world - including the Islamic world, where dissidents are regularly jailed, killed, exiled or merely intimidated and silenced.

We should never say that we recognize the right of these mullahs to oppress their own people.

After having overcome Fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism. We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The more rulers strive to curtail freedom of speech, the more obstinately are they resisted; …. laws directed against opinions affect the generous minded rather than the wicked, and are adapted less for coercing criminals than for irritating the upright; so that they cannot be maintained without great peril to the state.