May 08, (THEWILL) – I am so delighted to be joining you here in Denver, Colorado, and to be addressing one of the oldest humanist associations in the world. I bring you greetings from fellow humanists in Nigeria, and by extension Africa including those who cannot meet as we are meeting here today. I bring you salutations from humanists who live in countries and regions where they cannot openly identify as humanists or exercise their right to freedom of religion or belief, because of the risks and dangers associated with such expressions.
I am particularly gladdened by the history of the American Humanist Association (AHA) because as a founding member of the Humanists International, this association has been at the forefront of promoting humanism beyond borders. So I thank you. I salute you all because humanism is a universal outlook. And if humanism must thrive and flourish in its fullness, then it must flourish locally and globally. It must manifest in its national and transnational forms. I recall with immense gratitude that the American Humanist Association played a pioneering role in the growth and development of humanism in my country, Nigeria. Members of the AHA worked with colleagues to establish the Nigerian Humanist Association in the 60s. Incidentally, that organisational initiative did not survive the Nigerian civil war, but the memory did and remains a major source of inspiration and a shining example of international humanist partnership that endures, and that we all could emulate.
I recall this initiative because today more than ever international humanist partnership is needed to combat the global threat of theocracy, religious extremism, and other forces that undermine humanity, human rights, and the realisation of enlightenment with a global dimension. And nothing illustrates this urgent need, and promise better than the case of the Nigerian humanist, Mubarak Bala.
Bala came out as an ex-Muslim in 2014. He did something that many ex-Muslims in Nigeria could not do, and still cannot do. He dared what many people in Northern Nigeria dreaded, and feared to do because they could be killed with impunity. He left Islam. Those who renounce Islam in Muslim-dominated communities in northern Nigeria risk dispossession and disinheritance. They could have their wives, children, and family property taken from them by their Muslim relatives. Persecution of an apostate is seen as a religious duty, an act of faith for which Muslims expect to be rewarded by the Ummah in the here and now, and by their Allah, in the hereafter. So when it comes to being an apostate of Islam the fear of how Muslims would respond is not irrational. It is real, very real. And if you are in doubt, look at the case of Mubarak Bala.
Those who renounce the Islamic religion are treated with hostility because, in sharia implementing Northern Nigeria, apostasy is a ‘crime’. Muslims are socialised to detest free ex muslims. If one is born into a Muslim family or converts to Islam, the person is a Muslim for life. Many years ago, a Muslim woman who visited the humanist stand at a commonwealth event in Abuja said she would have nothing to do with any of her children who left Islam. And she meant it. The woman said this after glancing at a copy of Ibn Warraq’s book, Why I am Not a Muslim. She later made a very important point. She noted that she had memorised the Quran before she could think or reason and thus found it difficult to think or reason outside the Quran.
Many Muslims find themselves in the same predicament. Imprisoned and held hostage by their faith, dogmas, and doctrines, they find it difficult to think outside the Islamic box. They find it dreadful to entertain a sense of humanity, human rights, liberty, and freedom beyond the dictates of Islam, sharia, Quran, Hadith, and boundaries set and policed by Imams, Mullahs, sheikhs, and other Islamic earthly demigods, self-styled Muhammadan or Allah incarnates.
In response to Bala’s exiting from the Islamic faith, the family consigned him to a mental hospital where he was treated as a psychiatric patient. Family members took this measure to “protect” him, they said, to shield him from being summarily executed by bloodthirsty fanatics and other state or non-state jihadists desperate to earn a place in the Islamic paradise. Treating Bala as a mental patient was a way to get him to remain alive as a public ex-Muslim. It was the Muslim way of making sense of his ex-muslimness. Just as in the case of Mohamed Salih, a humanist activist who was charged with apostasy in Sudan in 2017, declaring an ex-Muslim to be mentally incompetent was a way to set him free and let him be.
While at the state clinic in Kano, Bala reached out to the humanist community. Local groups and activists worked and campaigned with the Humanists Internationals including the American Humanist Association. And Bala eventually regained his freedom. Local humanists could not have achieved this feat without the support and cooperation of humanists beyond the borders of Nigeria
Unfortunately, Bala’s regaining freedom was short-lived because in Sharia implementing northern Nigeria, there is no freedom of religion or belief for all persons. Islam as professed is a religion, not a religion. Islam is presented as the only true religion, which everyone including non-believers must respect. And by respect, they mean one is not expected to challenge, question, criticise or highlight the mistakes, gaps, and absurdities in the teachings of Islam including the life and teachings of its prophet.
By respect, they mean blind faith and submission to Islamic tyranny and totalitarianism even if one does not profess Islam. They mean that one should not say, do, behave, write, draw, or post anything in any way that could be considered offensive to the sensibilities of Muslims, including what some Muslims consider denigrating or insulting to their prophet. Meanwhile, Muslim scholars who criticised and spoke disparagingly about African traditional religions; jihadists who killed, pillaged, enslaved, and took Africans who professed other religions and beliefs hostage introduced and continue to propagate Islam in the region.
From the cradle to the grave, people who are born into Muslim communities in northern Nigeria have been held hostage; they are indoctrinated and mentally conditioned to uphold Islam as a “religion unto death”. Thus as a Muslim, it is death either way. One suffers physical and/or structural death. Either one dies as a Muslim, at the end of one’s life or one is killed or silenced if the person leaves the religion. Only those adjudged to be believers, the Mu’min enjoy their full rights as human beings. A non-believer, Kafir, is treated with indignity and disrespect. Non believers are subjected to systemic discrimination, oppression, and exclusion. In sharia-implementing states in Northern Nigeria, non-muslims, and those from other Abrahamic faith traditions are second-class citizens; they are politically disenfranchised. They can vote but in many cases, they cannot be voted for. Religious or irreligious others cannot aspire to or hold certain key positions in the government. Non-muslims are given longer prison sentences than Muslims. No one who renounces Islam enjoys his or her full rights to life, belief, and expression because Kufr, nonbelief, in Islam is prohibited, denounced, and discouraged.
Again, Bala tried to change the status quo. After leaving the hospital, he continued to post comments and share thoughts on social media that were critical of the Islamic religion and its prophet.
Bala is of the view that to combat the radical, oppressive and totalitarian tendencies of Islam people must speak freely about the religion; people must critically examine the life and teachings of the prophet. In April 2020, some Muslims who had been censoring Bala’s posts on social media petitioned the police. They claimed that his Facebook comments and posts were blasphemous and offensive to Muslim religious sensibilities. Based on the petition, the police arrested Bala. They held him incommunicado for several months and later charged him in court. The quasi-Sharia court convicted and sentenced him to 24 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to the charges.
Yes, Bala pleaded guilty after a sham trial in Kano. He pleaded guilty after almost two years of no guilty plea, psychological torment, arbitrary detention, a threat to his life and his lawyers’, harassment, intimidation, and coercion to reconvert to Islam. Bala pleaded guilty because his captors left him with no other option. They made it clear to him that it was either he pleaded guilty or he would suffer the same fate as the Christian college student, Deborah Samuel, or the Christian pastor, Yohanna Shuaibu.
Thanks to the efforts of local and international humanists including members of the American Humanist Association, we have put up a robust defence for Mubarak Bala. We have been able to send a strong message to his Muslim captors and theocrats that this judicial charade cannot stand, and that this Islamic mischief must be exposed. We have made it clear that we are ready to go to any length, bear any burden, endure any pain, and make any sacrifice to ensure that Mubarak Bala is free, that this jihadist ruling is overturned, that justice is served, and that the rights of humanists to freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expressions are respected in Nigeria and across the region.
Africa finds itself at a crossroads. The world is caught up in a dilemma, due to religious extremism. So humanism beckons with force and ferocity. From the remote corners of northern Nigeria and other places across the world where people cannot openly and publicly say what they think, believe, or do not believe in, humanism beckons. From places, like Mr Bala’s Kano or Deborah Samuel’s Sokoto presided over by those who value their religion or the name of their prophet more than human lives, humanism beckons. From my remote village in Mbaise in southeastern Nigeria where many people still strongly believe that they can make money through ritual sacrifice of human heads and other body parts, humanism beckons. From the remote communities of Konshisha in Benue, Central Nigeria, to Kafaba in Northern Ghana and other regions and provinces in Malawi, Zambia, Kenya where people attribute poverty, illness, death, accidents, and thunderstorms to witchcraft and in turn accuse people, attack, murder, lynch and buried alleged witches alive, humanism beckons. The collective futures of humanity are under attack and threat from dark and retrogressive forces. Faith traditions hamper the process of intellectual awakening and moral progress. So early in this 21st century, humanism beckons on us to take action and resist extremism, superstition, and bigotry everywhere.
Africa and the world need a vibrant culture of freethought, free inquiry, and expression that includes the free expression of ideas and thoughts about Islam and its prophet. We must be mindful of the mischievous use of Islamophobia to sustain the privilege of Islam, or the use of allegations of racism to shut down debate, and undermine critical examination of Islamic teachings and traditions. Humanism beckons on us to forge partnerships and alliances to protect, promote and enrich humanity in the here and now, in this world, and in this one life that we have.
Africa needs a robust culture of critical inquiry to dispel the dark and destructive hold of religions on the minds of the people. The continent needs a culture of expression that frees and can free society from the vicious grip and bondage of dogmatic faiths and suffocating orthodoxies. Humanism beckons on us to help reform Islam and draw from the well of reason, science, critical thinking, and the desire to meet the needs of people in the here and now to tackle faiths that obstruct human emancipation and enlightenment.
Humanism beckons on the American Humanist Association to act individually and collectively, nationally and internationally, locally and globally, to put in place programs to secure humanity’s collective futures in Africa and across the globe. As a board member of the Humanists International, I look forward to working with this association and its members to realise this objective.
***Leo Igwe is a board member of the Humanist Association of Nigeria and Humanists International.
