Thank you all for the warm welcome. I had two ideas for posts to start off, one a bit less controversial than the other; I decided to go with the easier one first.
There have been many words aired over the proposed Cordoba Center in Manhattan, presumably because of its proximity to the World Trade Center site. With the attention paid to this particular mosque, a person might be easily led into thinking that the controversy is simply over a site with historical and emotional value, and that by-and-large the sentiment of religious freedom prevails in the rest of the United States.
Unfortunately, that impression would be wrong. From the New York Times:
At one time, neighbors who did not want mosques in their backyards said their concerns were over traffic, parking and noise — the same reasons they might object to a church or a synagogue. But now the gloves are off.
In all of the recent conflicts, opponents have said their problem is Islam itself. They quote passages from the Koran and argue that even the most Americanized Muslim secretly wants to replace the Constitution with Islamic Shariah law.
These local skirmishes make clear that there is now widespread debate about whether the best way to uphold America’s democratic values is to allow Muslims the same religious freedom enjoyed by other Americans, or to pull away the welcome mat from a faith seen as a singular threat.
“What’s different is the heat, the volume, the level of hostility,” said Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky. “It’s one thing to oppose a mosque because traffic might increase, but it’s different when you say these mosques are going to be nurturing terrorist bombers, that Islam is invading, that civilization is being undermined by Muslims.”
The article details four other recent cases of community protests in reaction to a proposed mosque or Muslim community center. What unites these protests with the Cordoba Center controversy is the focus, which has shifted onto Islam itself being the problem identified by protesters rather than the more mundane civil complaints one would expect when any new large gathering place is proposed. One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers opines that this basic anti-Islamic sentiment has always been there and the Cordoba Center has merely provided a convenient pretext to stop hiding it, with cover being provided by prominent national political leaders.
I find the general thrust of the argument plausible, and if it is, has many worrying historical parallels with American antisemitism and anti-Catholicism. Those borderline conspiracy theories generally asserted that people of these groups had secret intentions to subvert the values and structures of the host society, and ultimately replace them with incompatible values. Such popular assertions led large groups and even entire political parties to form in opposition to these supposed subversive elements and promote arguments and legislation to combat the phantom threat, invariably oppressing them and placing their members at risk of harm.
On a semantic note, semite can be Jewish or Muslim. However, accepting the common usage of the word “anti-semite”, I think we need to look at some of the context:
Jews account for 2-3% of the world’s population.
Muslims account for 19-21% of the world’s population.
Jews have not commited terrorist attrocities agains the US of Europe.
Muslims have killed thousands in the US and Europe through terrorism.
Judaism does not seek to convert others.
Islam has a large subset who want the whole worl to be a Muslim calliphate (sp?).
My take on this is that Jews were piloried, blamed and persecuted for no reason whatsoever. Some Muslims (probably most) are equaly as innocent, however there are a lot who aren’t.
Fair enough, but I was aiming more for the American mutation of those ideas. Muslims in America are every bit as vulnerable a minority as Jews were, as I imagine they are in most of the Western world. That they are representatives of a wider world in which they are better represented I think only intensifies the fear of the other that drives this sort of cultural reaction.
I’ve always thought it strange that only prejudice against Jews is considered antisemitism. Semantics does have a way of shaping our attitudes.
Maybe it’s because not all Muslims are Arabic.
True, but unless you take the attitude of the most fundamentalist Jews and are willing to stretch the truth to breaking point, most Jews are not either, not even of that descent.
I think it’s more a historic thing. Jews lived as a minority in europe for centuries, with anti-jewish prejudice being the norm for most of that time that it got its own name. Antisemitism is now a word on its own right and the semite origin of the jews is not really a relevant factor. You are also right that while Islam started in arabia I don’t think arabs are even close to being the majority of muslims today (the two most populous muslim countries are Indonesia and Pakistan, neither of which is arab)
“Jews account for 2-3% of the world’s population.”
Are you fucking kidding me? You are off by an order of magnitude. The world’s Jewish population is estimated around 13 million, which is less than 0.2% of the total population of the world.
Yeah, I noticed that too. S’ok tho. Thanks for the correction, but no need to get mad.
Sorry; I’m not sure why the error irked me so.
@ Custador,
How do you feel about the poor and disenfranchised? I have noticed that every violent/anti-occidental/revolutionary movement of the 20th & early 21st century has involved a group that feels it has nothing to lose, and that rewards await it after death.
How often has this been true for the Jews? How often have Jews truly been denied upward mobility in a Western country (Hitler’s grotesque genocide contextually noted, of course)? I personally do not have an opinion as to whether ideas like “reparations” make sense or not, but I do think that I would prefer my odds for success (decent, middle class lifestyle) being born a Jew in middle America (or anywhere else), than being born a Muslim, even in the UAE.
The problem isn’t Islam, the problem is access to opportunity and resources. Islam is no more peaceful or violent than any other religion to come out of a nomadic culture, influenced by Roman Law. If I am being honest, would we have such a systemically aggressive, cultural response to a group of Caucasians with a radical religious agenda (Mormons?, IRA outside of UK?).
Radical-militarized Islamic sects are simply criminals, just like radical Christian groups with an anti-government bent. I suppose that crime is not valued, regardless of whether Jesus or Mohammed are used as the motivation.
I suggest you do some research, and stop making excuses, before you throw about the normal … it’s all the West’s faults. For a start have a look at the backgrounds of the tube bombers and show me how the poor and disenfranchised caused that when many other examples did not.
Osama Bin Laden is hardly poor and disenfranchised.
Very true, that’s the first thing I thought as well, but many that he brainwashes into doing his bidding are.
I’m not following the “poor and disenfranchisedt” argument – if you look at the US, Jews punch absurdly high above their weight in the political lobbying game, and it isn’t because as a demographic they average a low net worth. Some cliches get to be cliches for a reason. Then we see the likes of OBL, member of a serious contender for richest family in the world…
Thank you for this post. I find myself continually in the odd position of being an atheist who is defending Islam. American Muslims have been around for a long time with very few incidents. I know that in the UK and other parts of Europe that sometimes some Muslims have had a more difficult time integrating and that both Canada and the UK have issues with Sharia law, but even those events don’t reflect Islam as a whole.
Not some Muslims have a hard part of integrating.
Most of them do not integrate. Go to any social event, like pop concert, classical music concert, other festivities. you rarely see Muslims going to the typical festivity. Sometimes very rarely you see one or two but they do not stick around long.
I was referring to Europe, in the US the Muslim might be better integrated.
Do Musilms have to wear signs so you can spot them?
Perhaps we should make them sew a yellow crescent on all their clothes….
Now that would be a novel idea – shouldn’t it be green though?
I live in a Detroit suburb with, supposedly, the largest Muslim population in the country. There are many mosques around, as well as many churches of various Christian sects. Granted, there are occasional kerfluffles about facilities for foot washing and the like, but the main noticeable difference a visitor would see are a few more people wearing headscarves and the like and quite a few (really good) ethnic restaurants and bakeries. Once in a while some fanatic will make the news, but nobody is trying to make me follow Sharia law or interfering in my dark rituals to Athe. ;) I’m not trying to pretend that I live in a Utopia of tolerance, far from it. I’m just trying to point out the irrationality of xenophobic fear.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/Media/oklahoma-pass-laws-prohibiting-islamic-sharia-laws-apply/story?id=10908521
Look for other states to follow suit. It’s a cheap, noisy alternative to actually doing something to help your constituency.
It’s like the Georgia law prohibiting forced microchipping of people. No one was trying to get Georgian microchipped or enforce sharia law in Oklahoma but it’s an easy and cheep way for politicians to score crazy point that can be redeemed for teacup votes.
I would be interested in seeing what the courts would say about this type of law. If it was a fundie christian group wanting to enforce OT laws within Oklahoma, would they be allowed to?
You missed the point. No one was even suggesting to apply sharia law in Oklahoma and if they did the courts would have ruled it unconstitutional in about 5 seconds. The whole point behind the law is for the people who suggested it to get air time on fix noise as defenders of the american way of life without actually having to do anything of substance.
This.
Oh I understand that but I would really like to see how the courts would handle this since it is islamic not christian. I would also like to see what kind of reaction the courts would get if in a ruling on this it stated all religious laws were unconstitutional.
Are you trying to sell the old, christians are oppressed line? There is no question here, even without being a lawyer I can tell you that any attempt to enforce any religious law will be ruled unconstitutional. The judge wouldn’t even need time to think.
Why would I use that line? I would like to see the reactions of the christians to a ruling of this nature. I think it would be fun to watch how stupid some of the Republicans would react.
Australia has definitely followed the pattern. In the last couple of years there has been a very high profile battle to build an Islamic School, which has met with fierce local opposition. As in the US anti Islamic feeling has frequently warn the mask of patriotism. IE thous campaigning to block the school showing up at meetings draped in the Australian flag. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/28/2257907.htm
This may be wrong. But on the flip side there definitely is a subset of the Muslim community which seem to encourage this antagonism. In an unrelated recent case two brothers charged with rape, did show extreme contempt of courts and made several demands to be tried under sharia law. And more recently we have had some Muslims calling for aspects of Sharia law to be recognized, mostly around recognition of polygamous marriages and family law.
That some Non Muslims fear the islamisation of their community is no surprise as there are some Muslims who openly stat that this is their goal. Sure you can say that there are extremists in all religions but what makes this a problem is the frequent failure of more moderate Muslims to condemn such statements when they are made. Though to be fair the media is partially to blame for this, as extreme voices are just more likely to get a public airing.
Taj Al-Din Hamed Abdallah Al-Hi, the Mufti of Australia has come up with some gems over the years including:
* Comparing women who are not modestly dressed by his standards to uncovered meat.
* Saying Muslims who paid for their fare to Australia have more right to be here then thous who are descended from convicts (not that that applies to that much of the population, though he implied that it did).
I did see one BBC documentary about Muslims openly were yelling that they want to build a mosque at the queens palace. They even had a drawing how the palace would be transformed. And they told the TV reporter that the queen had the choice. Covert to Islam or get killed.
with regards to custador comment…..
one might say, terms such as “semite’ or “terrorist” are subjective, defined according to politics or convenience. There has been a Jewish terrorist act by the Irgun militia against the British in 1946. At the moment, “terrorist” acts are focused on non-state players—-activities by nation-states are not considered “terrorism”.
For those interested in a fact-based look at suicide terrorism (muslim and non-muslim) Robert Pape has a book “Dying to win”—might be interesting.
With regards to the issue of Muslim integration in Europe, the Europeans are much more insular(xenophobic) than the Americans (because of the founding principles of the U.S.) and Europeans also have integration problems with the Roma/Gypsy people who are held back from integration because of lack of understanding, prejudice…etc. —-Therefore, this may be a European cultural problem rather than connected specifically to Islam.
Sharia—Muslims do not have a unified “sharia” law making it difficult to impose anything as (western) Muslims would first have to agree with each other which “sharia” to adopt in the first place (there are 4 schools of sharia) Therefore, those who insist on the foolish notion of “replacing the constitution with sharia” or some such….may be delusional. —-however, the Quran does have broad moral principles (of law/jurisprudence) such as…All people are equal, all people are innocent until proven guilty, Guilt must be proven without doubt in a just manner, Justice must be tempered with compassion and mercy….etc.
“Sharia—Muslims do not have a unified “sharia” law making it difficult to impose anything as (western) Muslims would first have to agree with each other which “sharia” to adopt in the first place (there are 4 schools of sharia)”
Yeah. That’s exactly what’s prevented Sharia law from being implemented elsewhere on the globe (roll eyes)
Lots of good comments. I just want to toss in my first reactions.
Judaism suffered 1500+ years of demonetization. They were cast out and abused in every nation since the temple was burned in 70CE. The Catholic church, and later the Protestants under Martin Luther, treated them like evil incarnate. Comparing the history of Islam to Judaism is really apples to oranges, or perhaps apples to bolides. Yes, they are being discriminated against, but for completely different reasons.
To quote the marvelous Mark Twain:
History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes.
First of all, while the people who complain about the mosque are also the same people uncomfortable with Islam, the reality is that there wouldn’t be this level of complaint if the $100 million mosque was built farther away from the old World Trade Center. Does anybody deny this fact? If so, then where was the outrage when muslims built other large mosques? If you admit that the complaints would largely disappear under that condition, then it becomes hard to argue that the mosque is “just” about some sort of anti-Islam sentiment which is somehow similar to anti-semitism.
Second, the guy behind the mosque, while he is a peaceful muslim, also supports sharia law. It’s unfortunate that we define “good muslim” or “moderate muslim” simply as someone who doesn’t use violence. There’s plenty of ways to cause trouble for society without resorting to violence. Pat Robertson doesn’t preach violence, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a force for bad in the world.
Here’s an article written by Feisal Abdul Rauf (the guy behind the mosque), trying to paint a happy face on sharia law, urging us to “understand it”. Actually, we understand it quite well: it’s rule by theocracy. Everything else is just spin because Rauf is a muslim, agrees with sharia, and wants to add a little honey to get America to swallow that pill. We all know that the Koran treats women as half as important as a man. There’s simply no way to implement Sharia law that follows the Koran and treat women as having equal rights with men.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/imam-feisal-abdul-rauf/what-shariah-law-is-all-a_b_190825.html
Nashville, Tennessee. Temecula, California. Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
All these places, and many others besides, have had people protesting against the building of mosques. Presumably, they are all just too close to the WTC, right?
Using a combination of bible letter jumping, random values pulled out of my ass and Conservapedian mathematics™ I have managed to calculate the minimum distance from the WTC site where the fundi offending value (FOV) drops below the level of detection. It turn out to be 6001 light years which make perfect sense since the universe is 6000 years old anything further then 6000 light years is obviously an illusion created by satan, which fit perfectly with what we learned from the good fundies of gainsville FL.
Oh, and it’s a church in Florida (quite a long way from Ground Zero) that’s decided to host an International Burn A Quran Day. I’m sure that’s not based on knee-jerk hatred of Muslims though, right? And the reason that the news media has decided to ignore him, rather than treat him the same way they would a mosque saying it was going to burn Bibles says nothing about institutionalised predjudice towards Islam, does it?
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/07/29/florida.burn.quran.day/index.html#fbid=2GZjwVOLGVj&wom=true
Conflating a racist approach (anti-semiticism) to being opposed to the idealogy, practices or aims of a particular religion is surely a misrepresentation. Now I can’t speak for the particular examples you have listed, but I can surely take a principled approach which will mean that I can object to some relgions. Or at least certain sects of certain religions.
First a couple of principles. I have no problem at all with anybody’s freely held personal beliefs or views except where they adversely affect the freedom of others, lead to discrimination, repression or other undesirable outcomes. Note that the “freely held” part is important – there are certain religious an cultural practices which mean that beliefs may not be “freely held”. Indeed in some societies, or even families, this freedom can be all but removed.
As far as particular religions go, then I certainly think it consistent for me to be opposed to those that use various coercive methods to further their aims. By any measure, Chrisitianity and Islam have been strongly associated with this – indeed almost to this day. Of the various branches of Christianity, Catholicism has been associated with the most extreme and organised forms of coercive institutional behaviour. One can point to the various crusades, inquisitions, explicit support for slavery (inherited from the Old Testament), colonialism, wiping out of native religions, covering up of child abuse and much else. it also pursues policies (like opposing artificial birth control and opposition to some AIDS-related public health measure) which I believe are detremental to society. I do not think, on that basis, it unreasonable to be anit-Catholic in so far as it maintains such policies. They are not alone of the various branches of Christianity – others supported slavery and segregation to various levels, but I think they have historically been the most repressive.
As far as Islam is concerned, then that chared with the Catholic chruch a unification of secular power with religious authority. Islam had its own periods of imperialism involving violent invasions. In the early years it was confined to Arabia, but rapidly increased to include North Africa, much of Southern and Eastern Europe as well as Asia and East Africa. Indeed, with the Ottoman Empire, these coninued well into the 17th century albeit some might argue that this was not all religously inspired. The continued repression in many heartland Islamic countries is not something that I find acceptabole, and it is clear that some dispersed Islamic communities continue repressive social behaviour (not, maybe in the US, but it’s common in other parts of the world). The continued belief that there is one true way, and the imposition of this approach and repression of others in many Islamic countries is not, I believe, acceptable nor are coercive forms of social enforcement acceptable in liberal western democracies.
In that I am “anti-Islamic”, it is on the basis of these principles (which I would not confine to Islam, but I see much less to object to with Budhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Suffism and so on – although there are exceptions).
A while ago I read a book about world religions. One notable feature of the book was that each section was written by a practitioner of the faith, living in the UK I believe (as they all had a subsection on UK experience.
Several things struck me about the section on Islam.
1) It was the only chapter that didn’t acknowledge the existence of internal schisms and differences of opinion. Even though the fact that there are two major schools of Islam is well known.
2) It was the only chapter which started by bragging how the religion was spread by military conquest.
3) It was the only section that tried to defend the need for allowing religious laws in a secular country. Granted its focus was on Halal rather then Sharia.
Thanks for this well-reasoned piece. I am a new reader to the Unreasonable Faith blog and appreciate the many insights.
I also see strong parallels between the current anti-Muslim attitudes and the anti-Catholicism of the mid-nineteenth century, particularly the fears of Sharia law and the fears of papal influence on American government.
Interesting how there’s antisemitism, anti-islam, and no one remembers how Christians were killed for years by everyone from Romans to barbarians. I guess it’s because there isn’t any large group of people conspiring against them.