refused to retract <\/a>his \"bomb Mecca\" comments, but has upped the ante, declaring that his shrill, prejudiced anti-Muslim rhetoric is justified by the supposedly widespread extremism of \"moderate Muslims\". <\/p>\nWhile part of his chutzpah can no doubt be ascribed to his own churlishness and to the extreme political climate prevailing within the GOP, to write this off as simply the result of his prejudice is naive.\u00a0 It would be political suicide for any politician to utter such an offensive declaration if it did not appear to be based on \"the facts\" in most observers\u2019 eyes.\u00a0 He feels able to stick to his guns (unlike Trent Lott did when he, also quite in keeping with the racebaiting ideology of the Far Right, praised Strom Thurmond\u2019s opposition to civil rights; he caved there quickly because popular consensus did not support his reading of American history) because he knows that his assumptions about Muslims as the root of all evil are widely shared.<\/p>\n
I understand that many people disagree with my take on Muqtedar Khan\u2019s politics and I respect their views, but I hope those are so outraged by my criticisms of his politics will pause to ponder how his\u00a0 (and some other Muslim pundits\u2013this isn\u2019t unique to him) analysis of the Muslim community\u00a0 might reinforce the underlying attitudes that make Tancredo\u2019s outburst seem \"pragmatic\" rather than bigoted and paranoid (e.g., the myth that Muslims have been supporting terrorism, that
\nmainstream Muslim organizations have been havens for political
\nextremism) .\u00a0 Those\u00a0 assumptions have a far more decisive impact on the Muslim community in the greater scheme of things than upbeat soundbytes, however good they may make us feel.\u00a0 Every time a Muslim commentator validates all this \"Green Menace\" hysteria, it becomes a little bit easier for bigots to rationalize their hate and political agendas against Muslims.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t fight demonizing rhetoric by taking the path of least resistance and using John Kerry-style \"dissent\" (e.g., publicly accepting W\u2019s philosophy and then criticizing trivial details of that philsophy).\u00a0 You fight it by challenging all its problematic and incorrect assumptions.\u00a0 For example, you don\u2019t hear responsible African-American leaders accepting claims that all sorts of unqualified minorities are taking away all the jobs from qualified white people, the kind of rhetoric that one hears on the Far Right concerning Affirmative Action (and, in more a subtle form, in mainstream Republican\u00a0 circles).<\/p>\n
When\u00a0 Hussein Ibish, whom some Muslims might find an unlikely defender of Islam and\u00a0 Muslims because of his secular leanings, debates a Muslim-bashing pundit, he takes apart all <\/em>his opponent\u2019s arguments.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t say, \"Well, you\u2019ve got a point about the Muslim community being overflowing with extremists.\" or \"Yeah, Muslims need to stop whining about how Israel treats the Palestinians.\"\u00a0 Similiarly, when Farid Esack debates with Muslim-bashing hawks, he goes for the jugular and dismantles the underlying justifications for war and empire.\u00a0 The late and great Edward Said, who could\u2019ve been forgiven for sharing some of these stereotypical views of Islam since he was a Christian, wrote Covering Islam<\/em>,\u00a0 and powerfully challenged *all* the myths, doublestandards, and steotypes about Islam and Muslims, not just the ones that were politically safe to question.\u00a0 He realized that the way Muslims and Islam are subliminally otherized and systematically misrepresented in the mainstream media was at the heart of the political problems of his day.\u00a0 Said challenged the unspoken assumptions of his opponents\u2019 arguments rather than quibbling about secondary issues or limiting himself to the headlines of the day.\u00a0 And similiar things can be said about Noam Chomsky.\u00a0 \u00a0And the list of (mostly non-Muslim) critics who understand what\u2019s really at stake in these debates goes on.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I don\u2019t think the same can always be said for Khan\u2019s contribution to
\nthe debate, which tends to pass over in silence many of anti-Muslim
\nassumptions that people like Ibish, Esack, Said and Chomsky would openly refute, and sometimes even\u00a0 reinforces them. <\/p>\nI choose those as examples quite aware of their irony in some respects\u2013especially given all the hoopla about PMU\u2013and because I want to highlight how this isn\u2019t simply a question of whether or not people are \"good Muslims\", or even Muslims at all.\u00a0 Speaking truth to power is as rare a trait among Muslims as everybody else. <\/p>\n
Good luck fighting for Muslim civil rights while\u00a0 we quietly accept Muslim-bashers\u2019 talking points as we \"defend\" Islam.\u00a0 If that\u2019s going to be our approach, we should get used to this kind of abuse, because it\u2019s only going to become increasingly mainstream as this worldview filters down, unchallenged, to the masses.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rep. Tom Tancredo has not only refused to retract his “bomb Mecca” comments, but has upped the ante, declaring that his shrill, prejudiced anti-Muslim rhetoric is justified by the supposedly widespread extremism of “moderate Muslims”. While part of his chutzpah can no doubt be ascribed to his own churlishness and to the extreme political climate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":357,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-progressive-muslims"],"yoast_head":"\n
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