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Why stir up suspicion?
There was an interesting synchronicity with this week's question about the congressional hearings on the "radicalization" of Islam. While I was pondering that issue, I was also watching the surveillance camera "viral video" of a woman's rampage through a store. A person of color, the woman had reacted violently to a clerk's comment about "you people."
As much as the backers of the hearings care to explain them away as merely examining a small segment of Islam, the investigation will be seen as targeting "you people" by many Muslims. Especially in an environment in which many think it is still okay to stereotype Muslims, and popular media talking heads continue to regale us with dire warnings about "radical Islam," it is no surprise that offense has been taken! It is a testament to the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of Muslims among us that there has been no equivalent "sacking of the store" in response to the announcement of these offensive hearings.
Such targeting of one particular religion, ethnicity, or other group usually takes us no place good. Inflammatory speech has been linked with the firebombing of legal clinics, violence against public officials, and the murder of common citizens. Do we not remember the Nativist mobs of the 1800s? The lynch mobs of the past century? Kristallnacht? Perhaps these hearings won't lead to such depredations, but remember what a little paranoia did to Richard Nixon! And in an age of "viral videos," 24/7 cable channels, the Internet, and Facebook revolutions, we cannot control how these hearings will be framed, presented, and interpreted around the world.
It probably has not escaped the attention of many Muslims that in America the removal of a Christian flag or a nativity scene from a public space leads to cries of a conspiracy against Christianity. Criticism of Israeli policies leads to howls of anti-Semitism. But singling out a whole religion because of the actions of a few seems not to invite a similar response.
Why were there not congressional hearings about the "radicalization of Christianity" when a pastor in Florida threatened to burn the Qur'an, a church in the Midwest picketed military funerals with hateful slogans, and other Christians have bombed buildings, assassinated quite a few over the years, and wielded considerable political clout to deny rights to fellow citizens and pursue a bellicose foreign policy? Probably because we don't judge the whole of Christendom by the folly of a few; nor should we Islam.
I have no problem with our professional law enforcement workers' continuing their good work of "serving and protecting" through their usual investigative and community policing activities. I don't think they need Congress to stir up animosities and suspicions.
But how about some hearings on the "radicalization of Congress?!" Or maybe of our whole political climate?! I hear rumors of politicians' gutting our classrooms, destroying workers' collective bargaining, stripping away the social "safety net," and denying education to the most vulnerable in society. I have a sneaking suspicion that the radicalization of our own political climate may well do more damage in the long run than any imagined "sleeper cells."
In the 1950s in my home state of Indiana, at the height of McCarthyism, legislation was proposed in the state legislature to strip any mention of Quakers from school textbooks, lest any impressionable students be influenced toward pacifism in the face of the Red Menace. It was silly legislation, and it didn't pass. I think the current paranoia about Islam is similarly silly at best. And at worst, it could fuel the fires of those who do claim that America is waging a war against Islam. Toting up the figures in our current and recent expeditions into Muslim countries, they stack up interestingly against the record of Muslim activity in our own country!
"We the people" can do better than this.
By
Max Carter
|
March 7, 2011; 7:14 AM ET
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Posted by: mcarter1 | March 15, 2011 8:02 AM
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"Criticism of Israeli policies leads to howls of anti-Semitism"
We know you hate Jews. We have also read, with interest, of the antisemitic incidents at Guilford, your university, one of them perpetrated by rich Palestinian Students, who originally studied at the Ramallah Friends School.
I've just received an email from Palestinian friend who claims you had a relationship with the much hated, corrupt pedophile, Yasser Arafat.
More to follow. In the meantime, shriek on, Max.
Posted by: Farnaz2Mansouri21 | March 12, 2011 2:13 PM
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"Such targeting of one particular religion, ethnicity, or other group usually takes us no place good."
As an American and a Quaker, Max Carter is way out of his league when trying to equate Islam with other religions, because Islam comes complete with a government that Allah imposes on all called Sharia that makes Muslims superior to non-Muslims politically, religiously, and in all ways, and tramples the freedoms of everybody else. The first sign of Sharia is always their demand that nobody criticize or insult Islam, our First Amendment being no obstacle to them. That's why when the U.S. permitted mass immigration from the Muslim world it was courting disaster. In that world, it was taken for granted that Muslims are superior to everyone else, so when they come here they see our First Amendment and twist it into demanding toleration for themselves alone, while buying time to build up their numbers so they can demand the imposition of Sharia on everybody. That's why the King hearings are good but not nearly enough. The real hearings should be on a Congressional moratorium on immigration from the Muslim world unless/until it changes as shown by dropping Islam as the official religion, along with Sharia, and opening up to all religions. Else good-intentioned people like Carter are just dancing around the Trojan Horse before going to bed. Read the Historyscoper's Islam Watch Blog: http://tinyurl.com/islamwatch
Posted by: tlwinslow | March 8, 2011 6:14 PM
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Diner
Muslim people are tolerated by all another region people. But they don't they don't know only ISLAM is the best Religion.
So I think it's not right. For one all Muslim are not bad. Think it...........
Posted by: webcontent2011 | March 8, 2011 3:42 PM
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pcow
I think to divide all right between all other people like a same way. Otherwise more violence are creating for that.
So not do it.
Posted by: webcontent2011 | March 8, 2011 12:38 PM
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pcow
Muslim is a glorious region, their Holly Book QURAN were coming from ALLAH. Another side rest of region's holly Book are written by a pious man in the same region. So for that Muslim not attract another region people. But Muslim are also attract from another region people. But why?
I think all region people always anxious for Muslim. Because it's a real region.
Posted by: webcontent2011 | March 7, 2011 3:02 PM
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Farnaz,
Fact-checking would be helpful. The incident at Guilford you allude to was not an Antisemitic incident; check the public record. And you do have quite interesting contacts in Palestine if they think I had any connection with Yasser Arafat! Again, allegations are easy to make; you'll not be able to corroborate - because the connection never existed!