That article makes Islam appear to be worse than the bigots have succeeded in portraying it:
The Islamic world represses women, spawns terrorism, is prone to war, resists democracy and has contributed remarkably few great scientists or writers to modern civilization. So it's time to defend Islam.
I don't think it takes a bigot to conclude that women under Islam tend to be repressed, that Islam spawns terrorism far more than any other religion, that Islam has so far been unable to coexist with democracy, and that per capita its contributions to the learned arts and sciences are fewer than most other religions. What I don't understand is the purpose of defending it, as if defending something should be done merely because others criticize it.
it's a cheap shot for us to scold Arabs for acquiescing in religious hatred unless we try vigorously to uproot our own religious bigotry.
If Muslims are anti-Semitic bigots, they are wrong. If some Americans or Israelis or anybody else is bigoted, they too are wrong. There is no need to link one to the other. The Arab anti-Semitism is not rendered more palatable by the mere fact that other bigotry exists in the world, some of it against Arabs. If I kill my neighbor, is he justified in killing his neighbor, since there are other killers in the world?
"Islam is, quite simply, a religion of war,"
"They should be encouraged to leave. They are a fifth column in this country."
Ann Coulter, the columnist, suggested that "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
Take these one at a time. Islam is, to some of its own proponents, a religion of war. Islamic schools promote war and the fighting arts and in some cases suicide; not all Islamic schools, but more than one or two. To call it a religion of war is a simplistic overstatement, but to say it appears to be more a religion of war than, say, Christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism, seems to be pretty accurate. The second statement, that Muslims should be encouraged to leave the U.S., is in the context of continued attacks by Muslims against U.S. civilians (9/11, two airport shootings, one in New Orleans and the other in LA, reported plots by others). And let's be very clear about the distinctions here. In America, Muslims are made to feel unwelcome by some (not all). They are encouraged to leave. In Muslim countries, those who do not leave or convert have historically been driven out. The last Christian church in Afghanistan was burned down a quarter century ago. Jews have been driven out of most Arab countries. A Pakistani tennis player was told not to return home for the "crime" of partnering in a doubles match with a Jewish player. That is far worse than encouraging someone from a group attacking this country that maybe they might want to leave.
Coulter's comment is bigotry. I think it was tongue in cheek, perhaps, but I won't defend it. But again, it doesn't justify similar attitudes by Muslims or anybody else.
Islam already has 1.3 billion adherents and is spreading rapidly, particularly in Africa, partly because it also has admirable qualities that anyone who has lived in the Muslim world observes: a profound egalitarianism and a lack of hierarchy that confer dignity and self-respect among believers; greater hospitality than in other societies; an institutionalized system of charity, zakat, to provide for the poor.
Has the author paused to consider that most of Islam's followers are in countries where religious choice is forbidden? Has the author thought about the fact that half of these "followers" are women, who hardly seem to get much benefit out of the religion and are forbidden to speak out against it. As for the purported greater "egalitarianism" in Islam, I laughed out loud when I read that. Saudi Arabia is an egalitarian society? Pakistan? Egypt? Be serious.
it's reasonable to worry about the implications of the spread of Islam for the status of women and for the genital mutilation of girls.
Oops. While we must defend Islam, or at the least not harshly criticize it, of course we also shouldn't forget that women are treated like dog meat and girls have their genitals mutilated. It's as though the author forgot to end that paragraph with a little catch phrase of the tolerance movement, something like "Not that there's anything wrong with that." Maybe the critics of Islam aren't bigots at all; maybe they just think that, morally, mutilating the genitals of a girl is wrong. Raping a boy's sister for walking to the store with a young woman is wrong. Forbidding women to travel alone or express themselves is wrong. Maybe their criticism of Islam for these things is actually.....dare we say it.... morally correct.
And another thing: There has been a firestorm of criticism lately of the Catholic church for the actions of its priests. To most people, mutilating the genitals of a girl is in the same moral neighborhood as fondling little boys. Yet I have heard no one jumping up and saying that the critics of Catholicism are "bigots".
Of course, Islam is troubled in ways no one can ignore. The scholar Samuel Huntington has noted that the Islamic world has "bloody borders," with conflict around much of its perimeter. Of the 26 countries torn by conflict in the year 2000, 14 have large Muslim populations. And on average, Muslim countries mobilize twice as large a share of the population in armed forces as do predominately Christian countries.
Here we go again. Of course, Islam is "troubled", yet it is wrong of course to point that out too bluntly. On the one hand, it is wrong to call it a religion of war. On the other hand, we of course must note in fairness that Muslim countries seem to have a remarkable propensity to fight wars (of terror and otherwise) with their neighbors. It is what it is. You can argue about that and interpret facts and stories differently, but to say it is bigotry for a "conservative" scholar to call it a "religion of war" and then a few paragraphs later say, oh, yes, but of course the followers of Islam sure seem to fight a lot of wars, is shoddy journalism.
Critics often quote from the Koran, for example, to argue that Islam is intrinsically violent ("fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them"). But the Koran, like the Bible, can be quoted for any purpose. After all, the New Testament embraces slavery ("Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling").
The religious books say all sorts of things. But the alleged bigotry is largely pointing to actual things that Muslims have done, often at the behest of their "spiritual" leaders, and observing that it is wrong and dangerous. The fact that the Bible has a few passages that make people squirm doesn't change the equation. Do Christians today believe in slaveholding? Not very many of them do. Do they believe that all non believers who occupy "Christian" land should be expelled in a jihad? I don't know of many who believe that.
I found that article to be a particularly lame homage to the journalistic ideal that there are two "sides" to every story, and neither side can possibly be "right". When you are talking about refusing others the right to practice their religion, locking women in their homes, mutilating the genitals of young girls, and inciting violence against civilians, I don't think it is bigotry for people to stand up and call that wrong. I think it is spineless for the media to stand up and defend it on the grounds that everything, no matter how seemingly awful, must be treated respectfully and tolerantly. |
