As far as we know, there’s been a huge political conflict between the Western socialists and new atheism horsemen like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and so on.

Such kind of conflicts can be seen in many ways. Some of them were between regressive liberals who have no clue or knowledge about the religious extremism and Religious exclusivism following the example as Ben Affleck, Sam Harris and Bill Maher Debate Radical Islam | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO).

Some other conflicts can be seen in the protests and so on. Even the mainstream media has ignored the new atheism for its stands against islam meanwhile wrongingly accusing as islamophobic which is an oppotunistic term according to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. New atheism movement is as Islamophobic as its Christianophobia.

When these igorant western so called regressive liberals tried to protect islam as a religion of immigrants and refugees, they open more pavements for the alt-right to make good use of islamic conservatism and make their islamophobic racism into political excuse.

The fight against racism and xenophobia is something we totally agree and support but when it comes to the islamic religious values that are as transphobic, sexist, racist, pro-salvery as every other religion on the world, we strongly think that such kind of religious prejudices and religious teachings should be cancelled in order for a new society with progressive values to be borned.

Being said that, it’s also important to note that

  • horseman like Sam Harris hanging out with a classical liberal and a conservative Professor like Jordan Peterson is something we don’t like.
  • horseman like Richard Dawkin having western imperalistic mindset is something we don’t welcome.
  • there are some disagreements between us and these intellectuals when it comes to politics.
  • Most of us have disagreements with Christopher Hitchens regarding his view on Afghan wars and USA imperialism.
  • We believe there are some western authentic socialists and marxists who share these disagreements with us towards these imperatistic intellectuals unlike the false accusations done by regressive liberals.

When we compare these horsemen of new atheism with academic intellectuals like Noam Chomsky, Zizek, Richard D Wolff, Adolph Reed, of course, we agree and listen more to our leftist intellectuals.

On the other side, the New Atheism movement is the main inspiration that unites Burmese young atheists and secularists to be organized. Such aspirations lead to the formation of “Burmese Atheists Association”. The first media appearance of Myanmar atheists on international media were published on Aljazeera. Some of them are currently our valuable members:

  • Thiha, a founding member who also is a self-styled anarchist, punk rocker, and an ex-Muslim born to a Muslim father and Buddhist mother.
  • Theo, a founding member, a libertarian socialist and a mixed race atheist, is a popular figure when it comes to social media and local activism.

We also have some more new members who are serving as spokesperson these days too.

  • Hein, an ex-Muslim spokeperson born to a Muslim father and Buddhist mother, who is mainly responsible for web presence for Burmese Atheists and tech oriented challenges towards the state sponsored censorship is also a libertarian Marxist and democratic socialist.
  • Pyae, a founding member who manages and moderates our “YMAA(Young Men’s Atheist Association)” public facebook group, also is a Bakunin kind of anarchist.
  • Aye, our first female member who manages and moderates our “YMAA(Young Men’s Atheist Association)” public facebook group, also is a non-sectarian leftist too.
  • We also have more than two members who don’t have distinct political affiliation.

Being an atheist organisation dominant with Marxists, Libertarian socialists and anarchists, we do really are loyal to our respective left-wing values. We’ve a strong shared anti-religion attitudes towards organised religions and their fundamentalism. On the other hand, most of us, being mixed race in a Bamar race dominant country, ex-Muslims in a Buddhist dominant country, had ugly experiences with racism, discriminations and so on. Thus, we won’t think twice to stand against racism, and other possible discriminations such as sexism, transphobia and so on.

In conclusion, having leftists over half of the official members had made us an organisation with militant atheism mindsets aligned with progressive values and last but not the least anti-capitalism too. In this way, we use insights and intellectual arguments made by new atheism movements to align with our progressive values to challenge religious fundamentalism and religious prejudices which are the tools used to exploit the workers by the elite class of capitalism.